


Teeth and Claws

by UnmovingGreatLibrary



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: F/F, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-20 23:23:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 57,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3669012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnmovingGreatLibrary/pseuds/UnmovingGreatLibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Reimu is fatally wounded during a youkai hunt, Yukari binds her as a shikigami to save her life.</p><p>The only complication: it makes Reimu a youkai in every way that counts. No longer fit to be the Hakurei shrine maiden, she has to find a new place for herself in Gensokyo, guide her headstrong successor... and deal with some unique new dietary requirements.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Reimu! H-hey, Reimu, wake up!”

“Ran, please start calculating her survival chances. Hurry!”

“Right away.”

“Reimu! Say somethin'!”

“Marisa, calm down.”

“Calm down?! Her guts are hangin' out!”

Reimu's consciousness came dribbling back in a bit at a time, but her mind remained fuzzy and untethered. The noises of the outside world lurked beneath her perception, like a half-forgotten dream, until the sound of her own name repeated half a dozen times awakened something in her. _Reimu..._ With that one breakthrough, she once again became aware of her own existence. Her brain struggled to piece itself back together, but it was hard. Everything felt so far away, even herself. Fuzzy, indistinct impressions filtered to her from her body, but she couldn't find a route back to tell it _open your eyes_ or _stand up_.

“Marisa, we need to move. You're getting in the way.”

“Fuck you, I'm...! … okay. Okay. Fuck. Okay, I'm goin'. Whatever.”

 _Marisa and Alice..._ The thought drifted around in her head for a while before she realized it was her own. It was important, but she wasn't sure why. All the different parts of her brain had been packed into cotton, it felt like, and they couldn't quite hear each other talking...

“It's dangerous to move her. Marisa, you're the fastest. Please go to Eientei and fetch the doctor.”

“H-huh? D-doc, right! Don't let her die! You hear me?!”

“Reimu. Reimu, **answer me**. Reimu, I can help you, but I need you to respond. Reimu! Reimu, do you understand?! You are going to die.”

“Her odds of surviving medical treatment are no higher than 14%.”

From her abdomen, Reimu felt a sharp spark of pain. It quickly burst into an explosion, a searing wave of agony in her stomach. It sparked something in her mind, though, and she was jerked into temporary awareness. With a sharp intake of breath, her whole body jolted. Her back arched, and her eyes flew open.

It was weird. The pain felt so far away, like it was happening to somebody else. The whole thing did. She could poke at it with her mind, consider it from every angle, but it didn't bother her. Her heart was beating so fast that it felt like it was buzzing. Her breath came in short, frantic gasps.

Overhead, bamboo towered above her, and past it, the night sky. When she tried to lift her head, somebody pushed it back down. She saw all that she needed to, anyway—her stomach had been ripped open. Glistening wet bits were sticking out, in a massive amount of blood. Yukari was bent over her, blood on her hands and tears in her eyes.

 _I'm dying_ , Reimu thought, with no more concern than she might normally think _I should have fish for dinner._ Even as part of her realized that she should be panicking, she found that she just couldn't. It was almost relaxing. Off to the side, she could hear somebody sobbing.

“Reimu! Reimu, do you hear me?! You are going to die. Please, listen. Please. I can save you. Do you agree to be my shikigami?”

It was Yukari. Reimu's eyes struggled to focus on her. The cotton in her brain was getting thicker, and she felt so tired. “Reimu, do you understand me? You're been hurt. You're dying.”

Reimu tried to ignore her. She didn't care, she just wanted to rest. Yukari continued, pulling her head up and pushing her face in closer. “Reimu! **You are going to die**.” There were tears in Yukari's eyes, Reimu dimly noticed. She tried to remember if she'd ever seen her cry. Probably not. “Please, agree to be my shikigami.”

Reimu could feel her thoughts slipping away. Comfortable oblivion clouded in around her consciousness. But as she slipped under, she managed to silently mouth, _Yes_.

* * *

Reimu drifted back to awareness slowly, coaxed along by her senses. The first sensation was soft covers piled over her and warm sun falling on her face. Outside, birds were chirping. She felt wonderful, right on the border between sleep and full alertness, well-rested but not yet quite fully conscious.

With a content sigh, she rolled over and pulled the covers in tighter. It was the perfect setup to linger in bed for hours. When she got up, she could cook a leisurely breakfast, open the door to enjoy the spring air, and relax all afternoon.

Something seemed strange about the whole situation, though. Even half-asleep, some little corner of her brain whispered that this was wrong. It all just felt... off. Had her futon always been this soft? Since when did her sleeping area get sunlight...? They were small doubts, but they persisted, eroding holes in Reimu's comfortable cocoon of sleep. More thoughts trickled in, and with them, a single memory: seeing her own torn-open stomach. Yukari bent over her, with blood staining her gloves up to her elbows.

_She was in danger._

Reimu's entire being clenched in anxiety, and she leapt up to sitting, already prepared to fight or flee. But she found... nothing. She was sitting in a massive bed, piled high with violet pillows, sheets, covers, and comforters. The room around her was a strange mish-mash of styles. An ornate armoire stood against the far wall, and on the wall between, a vanity. The walls were wood, and the only decorations were a few calligraphy scrolls and a vase of violets sitting on a stand next to the bed. The door, at the far end of the room, was closed.

The surroundings seemed safe, but the adrenaline rush still kept her heart hammering in her ears. Her hands were shaking as she pulled the covers in around herself again. She tried to remember where she was or how she got here, but her memories were a foggy, indistinct mess.

She could remember... she, Marisa, and Sanae had headed into the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, intending to track down a youkai who had been killing villagers for weeks. Yukari had said it was dangerous and insisted on coming along. Marisa and Sanae had brought along Alice and Aya to even things out. And then... Nothing. Hazy memories of faraway shouting and the sight of her own innards.

Sliding to the edge of the bed, Reimu inspected herself. She was wearing a plain white yukata that she'd never seen before. Uneasily, she unwrapped the belt from her waist, then slipped it open to look at abdomen. She was relieved to find it intact. A jagged scar, thin and white like it had been healed for years, ran across her stomach. So she hadn't dreamed it. Hesitantly, she touched the scar, and it throbbed in dull pain.

Slowly, her pulse returned to normal. She was safe. Somebody must have taken her in while she recovered. Even so, something was strange. It should have taken months for the injury to heal that far. Had she been out for that long? Maybe Eirin had treated her. Eientei had all sorts of strange medications, so it wouldn't be hard to believe.

_So... now what?_

It was a good question. She felt like she should probably get a better idea of what was going on before she let anybody know she was awake. At least figure out where she was and how long she'd been unconscious.

Reimu slid to the floor, and the motion sent another twinge of pain through her stomach. Padding barefoot around the bed, she approached the vanity to get a better look at herself. The moment that she caught her reflection, something about it felt wrong. In new clothes and with her hair down, her reflection had an unfamiliar edge to it to begin with, but it didn't take long for the key difference to jump out at her: Her eyes were violet.

Reimu craned her head side to side in front of the mirror, inspecting herself from every angle, but it stayed constant. Her irises were a vivid, attention-grabbing violet. 

A chill ran over her. The healing, she could easily explain away, but this... this was something different. Had the injury done something to her? She blinked her eyes a few times, rubbing at them, but the strange coloration stayed. Whatever it was, it seemed like it was part of her now.

Finding herself barely able to look away from her own reflection, Reimu took stock of her body in front of the mirror. Apart from her eyes and the scar, there was nothing amiss. She felt good. She felt better than she had in years, actually. The perils of a decade of youkai-hunting had taken their toll on her, in the form of a few lingering aches that refused to fade. They were all gone now. Even her energy level seemed higher than usual. After sleeping for so long, she should have taken half an hour to wake up. Instead, she already felt like she could jog to the village and back if she wanted.

When she was satisfied, Reimu tied her robe closed and considered her options. Something strange had happened, and she could no longer be sure that whoever had brought her here had good intentions. It would be best to figure out where she was, sneak out, and head back to the shrine to get her bearings. If everything was fine, she could always thank her rescuer later.

Before she could leave, she needed to get the yin-yang orbs back. There was no way she could leave those behind. She needed to figure out where she was. If possible, she should probably try to figure out who had brought her here... but first things first. Moving to the window over the bed, she took a peek outside.

The landscape looked nondescript at a first glance. Gently rolling hills, covered in trees and grass... it was the scenery of practically any location in Gensokyo. Youkai Mountain wasn't dominating the horizon, which gave her some reference point. It meant that she was facing away from the mountain. In front of her, the sun was hovering near the horizon, so she was facing East or West. East from Youkai Mountain would be toward the shrine, and she didn't recognize the terrain...

As she pondered through that, a bit of movement in the sky caught her attention. Before she could write it off as a bird, she noticed that it was leaving a white streak behind itself. Uneasily, her subconscious dredged up a word that she'd heard Sanae use a few times: _Airplane_.

Reimu backed away from the window, and found herself uncomfortable with looking toward it. Had the Barrier come down? Had she somehow ended up in the outside world? … neither of those options were particularly reassuring. _Calm down,_ she told herself. _I was with Marisa and Sanae when I got attacked, right? Whatever happened, they have to be already trying to fix it._

 _Or they died,_ another part of her whispered. She did her best to disregard it. There wasn't time for that right now.

Wherever she was, she needed to get out of here before she worried about finding her way home.

As silently as she could, Reimu searched through the room. The armoire was empty, apart from some clothes hangers. The drawers on the vanity held only an inkstone, inkstick, a brush, and a stack of paper. The place was empty. It was like they'd set it up just for her. Her clothes, gohei, and yin-yang orbs were nowhere to be found, though, which meant that she was going to need to search outside of the room.

Leaning against the wall, Reimu reached over and eased the door open. Outside was an expansive room, decorated in the same strange mixture of both regular and more Western furniture. She crept outward, looked around...

And only then noticed Yukari kneeling at a low table in the middle of the room. Had she always been there? It seemed kind of hard to miss somebody in a pastel violet dress, and yet, there she was. Her back was to the door, but that golden hair was unmistakable. She was holding a newspaper, and seemed engrossed in it. For a moment, Reimu dared to hope that Yukari hadn't notice her, until the youkai spoke up. “Good morning, Reimu,” she said, without once looking over her shoulder. “It's nice to see you up and about. We're overdue for a talk, I feel.”


	2. Chapter 2

Reimu froze in the doorway. She wasn't sure who she'd been expecting to find out here, but it certainly wasn't Yukari Yakumo. She wasn't even sure if Yukari's presence made her feel more or less anxious about her situation. In theory, waking up in a youkai's captivity should have been a bad sign for the Hakurei shrine maiden.

“Good morning,” she said, barely even paying attention to her words. She stepped more fully out of the room and shut the door behind her, but lingered near it. “What happened? Where are we?” _Why are my eyes purple?_ could wait.

“Do you remember getting injured?” Yukari said, not looking up from her paper.

“Well...” Reimu's eyes trailed down toward where the scar was hidden beneath her robe. “Some. My memories are kind of fuzzy.”

“Mmh, that's only to be expected. You've been through a lot.” Yukari folded the paper closed, and creased it into a tidy rectangle on the table in front of her. “Why don't you have a seat? There's a lot to talk about. I'll have Ran bring us some tea.”

“... right.” It took actual mental effort for Reimu to convince herself to step away from the door and further into the strange room. The mix of styles was even more obvious out here. The floor was tatami, but the walls were all sturdy-looking wood with a rich, red-brown lacquer. The furnishings were... eclectic. The chabudai that Yukari was kneeling at was familiar enough, but everything else was slightly unusual. Overhead was hanging what she dimly recognized as an electric light. The too-white illumination coming from it gave everything a subtly artificial appearance. A clock, much smaller and quieter than anything she'd seen apart from Sakuya's pocket watch, hung on the wall, quietly ticking out the seconds. She'd only read them a few times in her life, but she was pretty sure that it said that it was 8:34. Strange, bright-colored toys were scattered on the floor, and also on the couch that was sitting in the corner.

The outside walls had several windows—more glass than Reimu had ever seen in one place in Gensokyo. It briefly reinforced her conviction that she was in the outside world, until she caught the view through one of them. Out the window was Youkai Mountain, as seen from... she wasn't sure, actually. It was framed in the exact center, almost like a painting, and viewed from the air. There definitely wasn't another peak in Gensokyo high enough for the view, but there it was, with clouds slowly drifting around its summit to prove its reality.

As if that weren't confusing enough, the next window over showed the familiar view from the Hakurei shrine, looking west over Gensokyo. Youkai Mountain was visible here, too, in the distance. There was no possible way that both windows could be accurate, and she knew damn well that this wasn't the shrine. Yet another window showed a more alien terrain, a sprawling arrangement of unfamiliar buildings and gray roads that she had to assume was an outside world city. Which meant—

“Reimu? It isn't nice to keep somebody waiting, you know.”

Yukari's voice pulled Reimu out of her daze, and she kept moving until she was on the other side of the table. Up close, it occurred to her that Yukari was dressed casually, in the more plain dress that she wore for day-to-day affairs. She didn't even have her cap on. That was a good sign, Reimu supposed. She didn't seem to be expecting trouble. 

Although Yukari's eyes were, she noted uneasily, violet.

She didn't want to think about that right now. “You still haven't told me where we are,” she said, as she took a seat.

“Isn't it obvious?” Yukari gestured at the surroundings. “This is my house. We're inside the Hakurei barrier. Adjacent to both Gensokyo and the outside world, but not part of either. You've been sleeping in my guest room for several days.”

“Oh.” Reimu's eyes strayed back to the window that was displaying the unfamiliar city. It made her anxious. She'd always been aware of the outside world, but she'd never seen it before, apart from a few photographs that Sanae had shown her once. Seeing it so directly, like she could walk ten meters and find herself standing in it, was... unsettling. Like the slightest mistake might send her plummeting into the completely foreign land. Even seeing Makai outside would be more reassuring. “What happened to me...?”

“Why don't you begin by telling me what you remember?”

Reimu frowned down at the tabletop and tried to dredge any more detail from her memory. It was still vague and cloudy. “I remember that we were looking for the youkai that's been attacking people." A new detail surfaced, and she winced. "Something... jumped at me." The memory of spearing pain through her stomach was the last clear one that she had, really. Everything after that was fleeting sensations in a confusing jumble. “I think my stomach got ripped open? I have a scar...”

“That's reasonably close. Yes, you were injured. It was a kamaitachi, incidentally. Sanae exterminated it afterward. You don't remember what happened next?”

“Not really...” Reimu wracked her brain again, but nothing else was returning to her.

“That's unfortunate.” Before Yukari could continue any further, Ran walked into the room, silently bearing a tray with a teapot and two cups. She knelt down on the side of the table beneath the pair and poured them each a cup. As soon as the smell hit Reimu's nose, her stomach grumbled in hunger. _How long has it been since I ate?_ Yukari inclined her head gratefully to Ran as she took her cup, then turned back to Reimu. “You were bleeding to death. You were almost certainly going to die before we could get you to Eientei. So, I offered to make you my shikigami to save your life, and you accepted.”

_Shikigami._ Reimu wasn't entirely sure what it meant, but it sounded important. She had heard the word a few times. _That's what Ran is, right?_ She glanced over to the kitsune. Ran was sipping her tea, seeming oblivious to the conversation that was taking place in front of her, but she very briefly looked up. Her golden eyes met Reimu's for just an instant. When she looked away, Reimu saw flecks of violet in them, catching the light.

The bottom fell out of her stomach. Whatever the relationship between Yukari and Ran was, it didn't seem like something she could just walk away from. Turning back toward Yukari, she found Yukari's eyes locked with her own. Watching her. Studying her reaction, maybe. Somehow, it seemed to anchor her and prevent her from just collapsing to the floor in frustration. “W-what does that mean?”

“The ritual... linked us together. There's a piece of my soul in you, and part of yours in mine.” Yukari smiled wryly. “We are forever connected.”

“What does that have to do with saving me?!”

Yukari held her gaze for another second, and briefly, Reimu thought she might be planning to shout back. Without a word, though, Yukari rose up to standing. Her hands trailed down her body to the lower hem of her dress. Under her fingertips, the cloth parted seamlessly, revealing the flesh beneath. She gripped the two sides of the split and tugged them apart.

Reimu looked away, but a sight from the corner of her eyes dragged her gaze back—there, on Yukari's now-bared stomach, was a scar. A thin white one, stretching from one side to the other and crooking upward as it went, with jagged little lines branching off of it.

It was Reimu's scar. The same one on her stomach. Once she'd stared at it in disbelief for a few seconds, Yukari smoothed her dress back together. 

"We're connected," she repeated, as she sat back down. “I share a part of any wounds that you take, and you share mine. I might say that you're getting the better part of the bargain, since a youkai like me wouldn't die from anything so simple as a cut to the stomach. Thanks in part to that, you seem to have come through okay. It was still uncertain for a while, though. I've only been recovered enough to walk around for a day, myself.”

Already, Reimu found her thoughts stumbling and overwhelmed, and she got the feeling that she had barely scratched the surface of her new situation. Compared to the strange cloned scars, the eyes barely seemed noteworthy. “... why did you do that?”

“Why? Well, isn't saving you enough of a reason?” Yukari stated it as if she were pointing out a mere fact, but suddenly seemed melancholy. Reimu wasn't quite sure how to interpret that. It was rare to see any emotions but condescending amusement from her. “This isn't something I would do lightly. Your impending death forced my hand. “

“Huh...” With that, Reimu found that she had no idea where to take the conversation from here. The tea in front of her had stopped steaming. She took the opportunity to have a few sips of it, giving her an excuse to delay her response. Like the few other things she'd ever eaten that Ran had prepared, it was wonderful, a delicate and complex blend of flavors that seemed to warm her to the bone. It took some of the frantic edge off her thoughts, and by the time she spoke up again, she felt like she just might survive this. “I still don't remember any of this...”

“It isn't surprising. Human minds are notoriously frail when it comes to trauma.”

“I guess.”

“I'm sorry. I know that this is a big change. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't make the offer in such... coerced conditions. The binding of a shikigami should be done with full awareness and consent from both parties.”

Reimu nodded glumly, and took another sip of tea while she thought. “What happens now?”

“That's up to you. Take your time to decide what you want to do. You're my shikigami in fact, but not in spirit. I've only done the very basic rituals, enough to save your life. If you'd like, you can leave here and live out your life however you want. If you choose to continue... we'll complete the process, install your software, and you can start working for me.”

The strange word, 'software,' resonated in Reimu's mind. She'd heard Yukari refer to it a few times in reference to Ran, but it was otherwise foreign. Not that it was her only problem with this situation. “I'm not going to _work for_ a youkai. Nobody would trust me as the shrine maiden for a second if I did that.”

"Well. There's a complication." Yukari hesitated, and Reimu realized that she couldn't possibly like what came next. She looked guilty. "Reimu, I'm afraid you're no longer suitable to be the shrine maiden."

“... what do you mean?”

"As I said before, the ritual joined our souls together. Spiritually, you are no longer fully human."

“So what am I?” She didn't want to hear the answer. The list of possibilities was short, and none of them were good. Already, she could feel her world collapsing beneath her.

“A youkai,” Yukari said softly.

The word alone made Reimu clench her teeth. “Y-you made me a youkai?!”

“Reimu, please calm d—“

“Calm down?!” Driven by pure emotion, Reimu rose to standing, leaning over the table. “You made me a youkai!”

“It was _to save your life._ ”

“Then you should have just let me die!” Reimu's voice cracked toward the end of the sentence, and she immediately regretted it. She knew she didn't mean it, but... saying it was cathartic. In the aftermath of the outburst, the silence seemed absolute. She could hear every tick of the clock on the wall. She didn't know what to say. She couldn't handle this—she needed to be _away_ , to have some time to think. There wasn't a door in sight, though, and even if she could get out, she wasn't sure if she could actually get home from here.

Mumbling a quick apology under her breath, Reimu turned and ran back toward the room she'd woken up in. She almost managed to slam the door behind her before she started crying.


	3. Chapter 3

Reimu was a youkai. She couldn't be the shrine maiden anymore. She had to choose between finding a new life for herself or being Yukari's servant.

It was all too much. She cried on the bed for what felt like hours. When she could no longer cry, she curled up and stared at the wall, with her thoughts going in circles. Part of her still hated Yukari for doing this. She should have been grateful, she guessed. She didn't _want_ to die. But to survive like this...

There weren't many strict rules in Gensokyo. Youkai didn't kill human villagers. Anybody who won a spell card duel had to spare the loser's life. Permanently damaging the Hakurei Barrier was forbidden. Breaking any of those guidelines, regardless of reason, were punishable by death.

And: Human villagers did not knowingly allow themselves to become youkai. Doing so was a grave breach of the order that held Gensokyo together. She'd exterminated several humans who had tried it, herself. It had never even occurred to her that she might end up in their position some day. She doubted that she counted as a villager, but... per the spirit of the rule, she was probably duty-bound to exterminate herself.

She didn't give the thought of doing so any serious consideration. Even so, it was still a mark of just how deeply she'd betrayed her duties as the shrine maiden. The proper thing would have been to allow herself to die in the forest. If the villagers found out, they'd be disgusted. Outraged, even. They'd probably be within their rights to try exterminating her. She wasn't sure if she could even blame them if they did.

With a sigh, Reimu rolled forward to sit on the foot of the bed. The vanity was on the wall perpendicular to the one that the bed was against, so it was at a bit of an angle, but she just managed to catch her own reflection in it. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, but the violet of her irises was still vivid and hard to miss. How had Yukari put it? There was a piece of her inside Reimu now. Reimu didn't _feel_ any different, but then, she wasn't sure what something like that would even feel like. It seemed like there should be something, though. She should be able to feel the little sliver of Yukari, stuck in her heart like a splinter.

But there was nothing. Her eyes felt the same as they always did. Only a slight ache in her stomach attested that the past few days hadn't just been a dream. Still staring at herself in the mirror, she slipped a hand into her robe and ran a finger across the scar. She wasn't sure if it had gotten smaller in the hour or two she'd been awake, or if it was just her imagination. If it was healing that quickly, it was just one more reminder that Reimu Hakurei could no longer call herself a human.

* * *

After what felt like hours of brooding in bed, Reimu closed her eyes and tried to take a nap. It soon became apparent that it wasn't happening, though. She just wasn't tired, and she couldn't stop thinking about her situation. After laying there for some time, she accepted that it just wasn't going to happen and resigned herself to staring at the ceiling.

Outside the room, the rest of the world continued running, not seeming to care that Reimu Hakurei was having no part of it. She heard Chen shouting excitedly about something for several minutes before Ran managed to hush her. Birds still chirped outside the window, and the occasional foreign sound of the outside world city below drifted up. It made her seclusion feel petty and pointless, but she wasn't about to head back out there just yet. She wasn't even sure what she was waiting for. It wasn't like she could stay locked in here forever. She'd already proven that she didn't like any of the options, and it wasn't like the near-empty room contained anything that might change her opinion. The sensible thing to do would be to either leave, or go outside and talk to Yukari. Briefly, she mused about climbing out the window over the bed. She could run away to the outside world. It couldn't be that much stranger than whatever Yukari was proposing.

The sun outside crept through the sky, and still, Reimu refused to budge. The sounds of cooking came from the main room. Some time later, there was a knock on the door. Reimu looked at it flatly, expecting somebody to plead with her to come out and eat. The only followup was the sound of footsteps heading away. Once she was sure that they were gone, she slid out of bed and sneaked over to the door. She listened for a moment, then cracked it open.

Outside, a tray was sitting on the floor, with a plate of food and a still-steaming cup of tea. She was tempted to close the door and reject it, but... the mere smell of the food sent another ache of hunger through her stomach. She still didn't know how long she'd been out for, but judging by Yukari's comment earlier, it had been at least a couple of days. Too long to go without eating, that was for sure.

Reimu tugged the tray into the room and shut the door, then carried the food to her bed. Donburi, made with some kind of fish she didn't immediately recognize, a bowl of soup, and a dish of tsukemono on the side. It wasn't anything she couldn't cook herself, but it was a lot more than the one-course meals that she usually made for dining alone. The first bite of the fish, savory yet sweet, made her realize just how hungry she was. Within minutes, she'd eaten half of the bowl and slurped down most of the soup. The food was gone before the tea was even cool enough for her to drink.

Having something in her stomach helped Reimu focus again. She still had no idea what she wanted to do, but she felt less despondent, at least. Once she finished the tea, she sat the cup back on the tray, then carried all of the dishes back to the door. Cracking it open, she peeked out...

Nobody was in sight. She waited, but no sounds came from the rest of the house. Had they left?

After sitting the tray on the floor, Reimu weighed her options. Maybe this was her chance to sneak out. Not... that she needed to. Judging by Yukari's words earlier, she was free to go as she pleased. That still didn't mean that she wanted the awkward conversation it would entail. Let her leave silently now, then come back and talk in a few days, when she had some idea of what she wanted to do.

It wasn't much of a plan, but it was something. After a few seconds of hesitation, she committed to it. Stepping over the tray, she hurried into the main room, then down one hall. The windows each continued to show different views—some other outside world city, a forest she didn't recognize, a few views of the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, a hillside somewhere on the west side of Gensokyo. It stretched for quite a ways, but there was a door to the outside barely a few meters from the room she'd exited into. She wasted no time in pushing it open.

Reimu had already stepped outside before she noticed the scenery. In front of her was Gensokyo. _All_ of Gensokyo, as seen from the air. It was a mostly familiar view, since it was pretty close to the view from the shrine. So she was close to home, then. That was good.

As she took a step forward, though, the scenery moved with her. She immediately froze. When she turned her eyes forward again, the world continued spinning. It was like this house, and the patch of land it was on, were a small disc, and everything else was only rotating around it. Turning her head made her viewpoint of Gensokyo rotate, letting her view it from different angles. By the time she'd turned ninety degrees to the right, she was seeing Gensokyo as viewed from west end, facing toward the shrine. Disoriented but enraptured, she walked around the edge of the house to follow it further.

With slightly more rotation, the scenery blurred, and she was soon looking out over the outside world. With fewer trees and hills, it was a more expansive vista, full of hundreds of unfamiliar things. In the near distance, a skeletal metal tower stretched up toward the sky, and below that, the city she'd seen out her window. She moved more carefully now. As she turned, it seemed to be her view of the outside world that was rotating, rather than the world itself. A slight change in angle shifted the city completely out of sight, until she was looking out at forested hills. They would almost look at home in Gensokyo, if it weren't for the winding road running along the side of one. She turned further, and—

And found herself nearly face-to-face with Ran. The encounter jerked her out of her thoughts, and she froze, half-expecting Ran to attack. Ran seemed much more interested in the clothes line in front of herself. “It takes some getting used to, doesn't it?” she said, as she pulled a towel from the line. “It made me dizzy for a few weeks, until I adjusted to it.”

"Er.” So much for escaping unnoticed. “Yeah, it's weird," Reimu agreed. "How can we be _inside_ the barrier?"

Ran looked to Reimu thoughtfully. “Well,” she said, "If you treat the Hakurei barrier as a two-dimensional manifold, and define alpha to be the collection of homeomorphisms that constitute—"

Seeing the look of terror on Reimu's face, Ran trailed off with a soft laugh. After dropping the towel into the basket by her side, she stepped around the clothes line and traced a circle in the air with one finger. “How about this? Think of the barrier as a wall around Gensokyo. One side faces inward, toward Gensokyo. The other side faces outward, toward the rest of the world. We are inside of the wall. If you head in the right direction, you can come out at any point on the perimeter of Gensokyo, inside or outside.”

“Huh.” It almost made sense, if Reimu didn't think about it too hard. She'd already gotten used to doing mental gymnastics to understand the barrier. This just added a new layer of them.

“Are you leaving?”

Reimu opened her mouth to answer... and found that she didn't have one. The feeling of urgency had faded while she looked out at the strange view. “... I don't know,” she admitted, and turned back toward the view over the outside world. So she really could just flee to there if she wanted. … not that it was anything but a passing fantasy. “Are you going to stop me?”

“I wasn't planning to. You're free to come and go.”

Reimu almost wished that Ran _had_ tried to drag her back into the house against her will. At least then she'd feel justified in resenting Yukari for this. On the road below, a vehicle caught the light, like a glimmering spark tracing out the contours of the hill. She followed it with her eyes, and it helped steady her nerves. “... you're a shikigami, right? What's it like?”

“Hmm? Well.” Ran looked up. Under her hat, one ear cocked to the side in what seemed to Reimu like a thoughtful manner. “Yukari and I both have different roles, but that doesn't mean that she orders me around. We cooperate. In our own ways, we're each helping the other." She smiled. "Yukari is very dear to me. Like she told you, our souls are intertwined. Her joy is mine, and mine is hers."

“... huh.” It wasn't quite the explanation that Reimu had been expecting, but it only muddled her thoughts further. She'd never relied on anybody, not since she'd moved into the shrine and started taking care of herself. She cooked her own meals, she cleaned her own living area, she did her own shopping. Having her fate tied up with somebody else's like that was daunting, really.

“Hmm. If you're willing, there's something that I'd like to show you. I think it will help you make a decision.”

“What is it?”

“Now that you're a shikigami, I could transfer a memory to you. It will be just like you were there, yourself.”

“Oh. Um.” Reimu shifted her weight uncomfortably. The idea was a strange one. She didn't relish the thought of having somebody else's memories in her head. But, if it would help make some sense of this... “Sure, whatever. Go ahead.”

With a nod, Ran closed her eyes, and seemed to fall into deep concentration. Reimu watched her for some sign of change. How would she even know if it worked? It wasn't like she was consciously aware of every memory in her head at all times.

… but then, she knew, it was there. It was a sudden foreign presence in her mind, as hard to miss as a splinter in her finger, a tangible object that she could manipulate. She turned it over in her head, and found that she somehow knew what it was. The memory felt like Ran, and she knew that with the slightest mental nudge, she could view it, erase it from her mind, even pass it to Yukari if she wanted. It all came as naturally as moving her fingers when she wanted to grab something.

“Are you able to look at it? It should hopefully make sense. As a shikigami, remembering things is one of our duties.”

Reimu resented Ran referring to her as a shikigami so easily, like she'd already agreed to this. But she nodded, and with a mental gesture, opened the memory. It unfolded into her mind, integrating seamlessly with her own memories, and—

 _She's standing in the Bamboo Forest at night. It's vivid, more real than if she were remembering something that she'd lived herself. She can feel the cool breeze on the skin, feel the strangely familiar sensation of nine tails anxiously twitching behind herself. Even Ran's emotions and thoughts run beneath her own, a whole alien experience of its own._... bring the doctor here, her survival odds will be 14%. If we take her to Eientei before treatment... _A blur of arithmetic and mental micro-divinations, too quick for Reimu to follow, whiz past._ 9%. _“It's dangerous to move her,” Ran says. Her sight flicks to the side, where Marisa and Alice are standing, both staring at something on the ground with their faces pale from shock. Alice has a steadying hand on Marisa's shoulder, as if holding her back. “Marisa, you're the fastest. Please go to Eientei and fetch the doctor.”_

_“H-huh...?” Marisa looks over, and there are tears in her eyes. She sounds faraway and dazed at first, but the order gives her something to focus on. “D-doc, right!” She takes a step backward, then hesitates. “Don't let her die! You hear me?!”_

_Ran nods quickly, then glances down. Finally, she sees what Marisa was looking at. In front of her is Yukari, bent over Reimu and trying to coax her back to awareness. “Her odds of surviving medical treatment are no higher than 14%,” Ran says softly._

_Yukari nods, without taking her eyes off Reimu's face. She's crying, Ran notices. It sends a pang of sorrow through her, too. “Reimu. Reimu, **answer me**. Reimu, I can help you, but I need you to respond. Reimu! Reimu, do you understand?! You are going to die.”_

_On the ground, Reimu is a mess. Her stomach is ripped open, entrails glistening in the moonlight. Blood is staining the forest floor around her, and still, more is flowing out. Her skin is pale enough that it seems to shine in the low light. Her breaths come in frantically fast, wheezing gasps._

_Ran takes a step closer. Shuddering and whimpering, Reimu jolts on the ground, and her eyes fly open. She looks around wildly, but the look of awareness soon fades. Her expression is more like a confused animal than a person. “Reimu! Reimu, do you hear me?! You are going to die. Please, listen. Please. I can save you. Do you agree to be my shikigami?” When Reimu doesn't respond, Yukari repeats herself. “Reimu, do you understand me? You're been hurt. You're dying.”_

_The spark of awareness fades from Reimu's eyes, and her breathing slows down. Yukari leans forward and slides one arm behind the girl's neck. She's left nearly face to face with her, almost shouting. “Reimu! **You are going to die**. Please, agree to be my shikigami.”_

_And then, a miracle happens. Reimu's eyes focus, and she mouths, “Yes.” She holds Yukari's gaze for just a moment before her eyes glaze over and drift shut again. With a tremble, she goes still._

_Yukari lets out a moan of relief, but there is no time to revel in it. Ran has put together estimates for Reimu's remaining lifespan. It's best expressed in minutes. “Ran. The ritual. Please hurry.”_

_“Y-yes, right,” Ran stammers, as she steps closer and kneels down next to Reimu. This close, she can smell her blood, a temptingly appealing scent for a fox. Her mind hums through more calculations, determining the most suitable materials for her purposes. Then, without hesitation, she scoops up a blob of the soil near Reimu's body on her fingertip. It's wet with blood, still warm. Pressing her fingertip to Reimu's forehead, she starts drawing characters in the brown-red muck, Sanskrit and long-outdated Chinese. Reimu's skin feels cold and clammy, and her breathing is so shallow that it's barely noticeable. Ran hurries, drawing as quickly as she can without making mistakes, while Yukari does the same, marking her body with blood and soil. As soon as the markings are complete, Yukari bows her head, urgently muttering to herself._

_To Ran's mind, the foreign words all translate into sorcerous components. She can see the forces that they're bringing into play, how each one ties into the next. The spell takes shape, and some chattering part in the back of Ran's head simulates it. Despite its power, it's a rather simple sorcery, little more than a metaphysical machine to mesh two souls together into parallel microcosms. She recognizes that Yukari is weaving the effect on the fly, adapting it from a much larger ritual._

_Yukari speaks the final word. There's no thundering release of energy, nothing to indicate the end of the ritual apart from Ran's metaphysical perception of the forming bond. Reimu's body spasms on the ground, and her breathing grows steadier. Yukari lets out a shuddering gasp and brings a hand to shield her own stomach. Deep, arterial blood gushes out, staining her clothes._

_“Are you …?!”_

_“I'll be fine,” Yukari says. Her voice sounds reedy. She takes a wheezing breath, and something gurgles in her throat. “Please re-run the calculations.”_

_“Right, o—_

The memory came to an abrupt end, and Reimu's mind snapped back to reality. The daytime air felt warm on her skin compared to the night from the memory. Her pulse was hammering in her head from a secondhand adrenaline rush. Being jerked back into her body so quickly was a bit disorienting, and she noticed Ran keeping an eye on her as she recovered. “W-why did you show me that?” It wasn't until she opened her mouth that she realized that the sight of her own viscera had left her nauseous.

“Hmm, I'm not sure. It seemed important,” Ran said. Turning away, she looked out over the city below again. “I'm not good at manipulating people, like Yukari is. I can only present the facts and let them speak for themselves. … I've never seen her so upset, though.” Her tails twitched behind her, in what seemed like a thoughtful manner to Reimu. “And please don't take this the wrong way, but... they've been training your replacement for years. She could have just as easily let you die.”

“Oh, well, _thanks._ ”

“I'm sorry,” Ran said, with an apologetic smile. “That probably came across the wrong way. What I mean is... Yukari had nothing to gain by saving you. Taking a shikigami is a serious matter. For her to do it so recklessly, you must be very important to her.”

“I see...” _Important to her..._ The words kept echoing in her head. Reimu was used to examining everything that Yukari did, looking for whatever hidden goal she was actually aiming for. It was hard to imagine any here, though. Ran was right: The Yukari in that memory hadn't been plotting anything. She'd been barely rational, on the verge of sobbing. _Maybe all of this feels as sudden for her as it does for me._ It was a strange thought. Yukari had always felt confident and in-control, even during incidents.

Every little thing that she learned about her situation just made it harder to make a decision. “... where is she right now?”

“She's getting some sleep. She should be awake soon. Is there anything you need in the meantime?”

Reimu didn't give the offer much consideration before shaking her head. “I don't think so, thanks.” Glancing back toward the half of the yard that faced inward toward Gensokyo, she said, “If I leave this place, how do I get back?”

“Just approach the barrier. It should recognize you now and let you pass through.”

 _Just how much control do you two have over the barrier...?_ She left the question unspoken. That could wait for another time. “Okay. Thanks. I... think I'm going to take a walk and get some fresh air.”


	4. Chapter 4

Approaching the strange wraparound border of the Yakumo residence, Reimu wasn't sure what to expect. It was still almost disappointingly prosaic. As she crossed some invisible line, the shifting landscape settled into a single option, and she found herself floating in the air above Gensokyo. She hadn't thought to choose the closest point to the shrine. She was kilometers away, actually.

Without thinking, she started toward the shrine. And then, she remembered, _No longer suitable to be the shrine maiden_ , and altered her course. She didn't want to see the shrine. Not now. She would have to eventually, whether she accepted Yukari's offer or not. Right now, she really did just need a chance to clear her head.

It was early evening, and from the air, Gensokyo was streaked with long shadows cast by the setting sun. The sky was packed with fat, puffy clouds. They weren't likely to start dumping rain on her head, and they made a nice ceiling, mottling the landscape below with shadows and providing a backdrop so she wasn't quite so obvious in the empty sky. The setting sun lit everything with a buttery warm light that helped her relax, and the air was just warm enough to to keep her from getting cold as she flew. All things considered, it was a perfect evening for this kind of thing.

She briefly considered stopping in to visit somebody, but what would she even say if she did? She needed to get a better handle on her situation before she dragged somebody else in. Had Yukari even told Marisa and Sanae that she was still alive? She assumed so. Ran had sent Marisa to get Eirin, so she'd probably come back and seen her being treated. She hoped that Yukari hadn't told them the details of what she'd done. It was the kind of news that she felt she should break herself.

Without an objective, Reimu flew a lazy, meandering course over Gensokyo. After dropping some altitude to skim over the treetops along the slope of Youkai Mountain, she circled around the peak and flew back outward at a random angle. It took her across Genbu Ravine, then along the river for a kilometer or two, across the plains, and over the Forest of Magic. Soon, she was drawing close to the barrier again. As the shrine maiden, she'd needed to know every meter of its length. Normally, trying to cross it would just result in her being turned around, pointed back into Gensokyo without ever seeming to turn. She'd long ago lost any interest that she might have had in purposely experimenting with the effect, so she'd gotten used to stopping short of it.

Today, though, she pushed forward, flying well past the point where she'd normally turn back. Slightly unfamiliar terrain came into view as she headed into the farther outskirts of Gensokyo. When she finally hit the barrier, the change was instant. The gentle breeze was replaced by the calmer air of Yukari's personal pocket universe. She found herself looking down at the house, viewing the front from an angle, with a treetop only a meter or two below her feet.

She knew what she needed to do. It had always been obvious, really, but she'd been avoiding it.

She and Yukari needed to have a talk.

* * *

When Reimu walked into the house, shortly after sunset, she was prepared to meet Yukari inside the door. What she didn't expect was Chen, laying on the floor in the main room. There was a paper in front of her, and judging by its repetitive contents, she was practicing her writing. She seemed deep in thought, with her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth in concentration as she worked. Only when the current character was completed to her satisfaction did she look up at Reimu. “Oh. Hi!”

“... hi.”

From her current location, Reimu could see most of the house's communal area, but Yukari and Ran were nowhere to be seen. Before she could say anything, Chen continued. “Lookin' for Lady Yukari?”

“Yeah. Do you know where she is?”

“This way!”

Before Reimu could reply, Chen sprang to her feet and scurried off through the house. She was surprisingly fast, dropping to all fours for short bursts of speed and leaping around furniture. Reimu had to hurry after her just to keep from getting left behind. At the far end of the room, Chen leapt into a hallway and rebounded off the wall with a kick of her feet. Reimu scrambled behind her, and nearly plowed into the wall as she made the same turn. “H-hey! Slow down!”

Already at the far end of the hallway, Chen did another ninety degree turn and ricocheted into an open doorway. Reimu was done running, though. She slowed down to a fast walk. It couldn't be _that_ much farther, after all, and she didn't want to start her conversation with Yukari by stumbling into the room, out of breath.

The doorway proved to be the last one, anyway. The room on the other side was the most eclectic one that Reimu had seen in the place. Most obvious was the bed, a massive structure that was half as large as some of the smaller houses that Reimu had seen, with posts rising from the corners to hold gauzy violet sheets overhead. A mixture of star charts and faded photographs—some color, some looking much older—covered one wall. Beneath them, a desk held a stack of ancient-looking books, with a kiseru sitting on top, alongside coins, dice, and a small bowl of dried rice. Several vases and pots lined the walls. A weathered trunk sat at the foot of the bed. Despite all of it, the room felt remarkably tidy. It was crowded, but in a lived-in way. The arrangements of somebody who'd had years to put everything exactly where it needed to be.

Or, since it was Yukari, more like decades. Centuries, possibly.

When Reimu entered the room, Yukari was seated on the trunk at the foot of the bed. Chen was already in front of her, tilting her head around appreciatively under a vigorous ear-petting. Yukari continued this for several seconds before she said, “Thank you, Chen. Why don't you go back to your lessons now?”

“'kay!”

Chen walked back out of the room rather less energetically than she'd entered. Not until the door had closed behind her did Yukari look up and meet Reimu's eyes, giving a slight smile. “You came back faster than Ran had predicted. How's your stomach?”

With everything else, Reimu hadn't even thought about her injury over the past few hours. One hand drifted over it before she could stop herself. “It hasn't really bothered me.” Remembering Yukari's blood-soaked dress, she added, “Um, how is yours...?”

“Much better than it was a couple of days ago.” Yukari seemed pleased by the question, but in the aftermath, her eyes flicked over Reimu again, and Reimu couldn't help but feel like she was being analyzed. “Why did you come back? You didn't seem happy with the situation earlier. Was Ran really that persuasive?”

“... kind of. She showed me her memories. This wasn't really something you had planned, right? It's a sacrifice for you too.”

“It has its dangers, yes.”

Reimu nodded. “I guess that's it, then. Even if there wasn't anything else to say, I felt like I owed it to you.”

“Oh?” Reimu's eyes had strayed downward as she spoke, but she would still swear that Yukari hadn't moved a centimeter. Suddenly, though, the youkai was behind her, leaning over her. She was close enough that Reimu could feel her breath against her ear when she said, “Why, is that genuine gratitude that I hear?”

A furious blush flooded into Reimu's cheeks. In one motion, she stepped away and whirled around to face Yukari. “Do you really have to do that?!”

“Reactions like that only ensure that I'll continue to do so.” Yukari was smirking, seeming a little too pleased with herself, but took a step backward to give Reimu some breathing room. “... since you're here anyway, do you want to hear what I'm proposing?”

Reimu still felt the contrary urge to say 'no' and storm out, but she didn't have much to benefit from it. After seeing Ran's memories, she felt obligated to hear Yukari out. “... it couldn't hurt.”

“Mmh. Wonderful.” Yukari closed her eyes for a second. When she resumed speaking, she adopted a more businesslike tone. “I'm happy with Ran as a shikigami, but she has her weaknesses. She's programmed for divination, computations, and domestic chores. She's a wonderful administrator and assistant, but her combat programming is incidental. It's hardly the best that a shikigami could aspire to.”

“... so, what? You want me to fight people for you?”

“Essentially, yes. It wouldn't be particularly different from what you're doing right now. You could continue to resolve incidents and fight youkai who disturb the peace. You'd just be doing them under my direction, and occasionally fighting other targets of my choosing.”

It sounded too simple to be true. Reimu studied Yukari's face for any hint that she had some ulterior motive. “What kind of other targets?”

“Anybody who tries attacking me, mostly. Occasionally, people who are trying to disrupt Gensokyo's balance in subtler ways. Not every incident is as obvious as blocking out the sun with red mist. Some of them require choosing targets more carefully than the Hakurei shrine maiden might, for example.”

Yukari had sounded amused by Reimu's question, which had left Reimu prickling to begin with, but the last bit had really pushed her over to outright annoyance. Even so, the offer still sounded suspiciously good. There was no hint of using her for... whatever kind of wicked scheme Reimu had been fearing. She wasn't even sure. “Do you really need somebody just for that kind of stuff?”

“Not on a regular basis, no. When I do, it would be nice to have available. And it meshes nicely with your abilities, I feel. When I don't need your services, you would be free to do whatever you want. Visit your human friends, nap every day, take up a new hobby... although you would have to behave with a _little_ decorum. As a shikigami, you are my representative. I couldn't have you getting into drunken fights in the middle of the village.”

“I don't think that's going to happen,” Reimu said tersely.

As usual, Yukari beamed at getting a rise out of her. “To put it simply,” she said, growing more serious again. “Ran serves as my hands and eyes around Gensokyo. She monitors developments, manages day-to-day affairs, and handles situations that require a delicate touch. I would like you to be my teeth and claws. You will be my weapon. The final argument of kings, hmm?”

The last phrase didn't mean much to Reimu, but the rest of the explanation gave her plenty to think about. Between this and the earlier conversation, she was feeling emotionally exhausted, but her senses still felt as sharp as ever. Maybe it was something to do with the shikigami thing, for all she knew. Walking across the room, she settled onto the chest. Her eyes drifted closed as she tried to correlate her thoughts, and that too, she found surprisingly easy. She could pull the memory of any fact that had come up in the conversations with perfect clarity, forming them into lists and seeing the relationships between them with a mere thought. That _had_ to be part of the changes. It was useful, but strange enough that she elected not to use it for now. It still felt like she was missing basic facts, but she was too overwhelmed to even know what to ask. One question did come to mind, though. “... what about the shrine?”

“What about it?”

“I... can't be the shrine maiden anymore, right?” It was hard to say. It didn't feel real. “What's going to happen? Will there be another shrine maiden?”

“Of course. The next shrine maiden has been training for several years. It will take some time for everything to get sorted out, but I've already informed the village elders that you're no longer suitable.”

Reimu cringed. All of the implications threatened to drag her down into despair again. Yukari seemed to sense this, and stayed quiet until Reimu spoke up again. “Do I need to move out, then?”

“Within the next week or two. You can live there until you've reached a decision. If you decide to move here, you can have the guest bedroom. Of course... there is also the matter of your surname.”

“Huh? What about it?”

“You need to change it.”

“W-what?”

“'Hakurei' is as much of a title as it is a name. I suppose you might be able to keep it if you retire to the village, but taking you as my shikigami while still holding it would... send the wrong impression to some factions. They're already going to be suspicious of me for taking a former shrine maiden into my fold. If it looks like I'm trying to usurp the legitimacy of the Hakurei name, things might get unpleasant.”

“Great...” It sounded like a flimsy excuse, but Reimu did know that youkai ate up that kind of symbolism. Whatever. She'd already changed her surname _to_ Hakurei when she became the shrine maiden anyway. Compared to everything else, it was a minor footnote, but an annoying one. She pushed that to the corner of her mind for now. She could worry about that if she agreed to this whole mess. “So what happens if I agree? You'll... put more things in my head?”

“More software, yes. There are some other details that I suppose you should be aware of going in. You're already a youkai now, but the changes will become obvious quicker. I can't make any guarantees about what will happen. I'm sorry. Every youkai develops differently. At the very least, you should have a much longer life span and be immune to most mortal diseases and poisons... not bad, hm?”

“Urgh. What else?”

“Hmm, well, I'm sure you've already noticed the changes to your mental capabilities. Those will get more pronounced. You'll gain some of my knowledge of sorcery, a little divination, improved fighting capabilities, several of my abilities... I'm still considering the details, but it should be quite an upgrade. Assuming you're willing to think of it like that.” Yukari smirked, and walked over to sit on the trunk next to Reimu. “... it will also bind our souls further.”

“And what's that supposed to mean?”

“Mmh, it's hard to explain, even though Ran and I have been like this for centuries. Practically speaking, it gives each party a sense of the other's well-being and emotional state, along with the ability to send messages mentally. Less tangibly... a general sense of empathy and communion. As long as the two parties going into it are compatible, it's usually described as a very positive experience.”

“And what if they aren't?”

“'Short and catastrophic' would be a fair description,” Yukari said dryly. “Why, do you really think that we're so different?”

“You're a youkai and I am. Um... was. The Hakurei shrine maiden. That's about as different as it gets.”

“Hmm. I wonder. Do you have any other questions?”

“I... not right now. Maybe later.” Reimu sighed and idly brushed her hair back. At home, she only ever wore it down when she was sleeping or sick. Now, it was constantly bothering her, tickling at her shoulders and poking into the edges of her vision. First thing to do when she got home was put her hair in a bow, where it belonged. “I have enough to think about already.”

“Then I have a question for _you_ , if you'll humor me.”

Reimu shrugged and leaned forward. “It can't hurt to ask.”

“Why do you think that I was willing to take you as a shikigami? You've said yourself that it was risky.”

Reimu wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but it wasn't that. It certainly sounded like a loaded question. “... I'm not sure”

“We'll call it a riddle, then. I'll tell the answer when you give me your decision.” After reaching over to pat Reimu's hand, Yukari rose off of the trunk. “Take your time and decide what's right for you. I'm confident that you'll make the right choice.” 

“By which you mean working for you.”

“My, so cynical. But no. I'll trust in your judgment.” Yukari turned to face her again, and with a sincere smile, said, “Reimu, whatever you decide, you're always welcome in the Yakumo family homestead.”


	5. Chapter 5

By the time that Reimu made it back to the shrine, the sun was well below the horizon. She was surprised to find that it looked like it hadn't been disturbed in her absence. The only hint that anybody else had entered were her yin-yang orbs and the purification rod, sitting in a neat line on top of the table.

It was a relieving sight. She hadn't thought to ask Yukari for them, but she wouldn't feel right without them. Her clothes were nowhere to be seen. They'd been ruined anyway. Probably burnt into a pile of ashes somewhere. She'd worry about changing later. After the day she'd had, she wasn't in the mood to do much except have a cup of tea and collapse somewhere comfortable.

The table needed to be clean if she was going to have tea, though. She put the gohei in its usual spot leaning by the door, then knelt down to pick up the yin-yang orbs. The second that her skin brushed against one, there was an audible _snap_ of discharging energy. Pain shot into her hand. By the time that she was conscious of what had happened, she'd already recoiled from the table.

Reimu swore under her breath, shaking the still-stinging hand, then turned it over to inspect the damage. In the spot where she'd touched the orb, there was a red mark on her skin, a curling starburst of still-tender flesh. Confusion welled in her chest, then panic. If even the orbs had turned against her...

But she had to be sure. Hesitantly, she reached out and held her hand above a different orb. Gritting her teeth, she darted one finger down to give it a tap. This time, she was watching, and saw the white flash of energy that lashed out from it once she was close. Pain sparked through her finger, and it jerked away reflexively. Sucking on it, she considered the implications. It did make sense, in a certain way. She was no longer the rightful Hakurei shrine maiden.

This was a youkai-hunting shrine, and she was now a youkai.

* * *

“Yo~. Alice sends her good wishes and stuff,” Marisa said, as she stepped into the shrine.

After a long and restless night—she'd never maintained a steady sleep schedule, and spending days unconscious certainly hadn't helped—Reimu had been woken up by a knock on the door. She'd barely managed to get it open before she was tackled into a hug by an already-crying Sanae. Fortunately, nobody else was waiting behind her. That was good. Word that she was home was bound to get out sooner or later, but for now, Reimu wasn't in the mood to entertain a dozen guests. “How did you know I was back already...?” she said, as she disentangled herself from Sanae just enough to push the door closed.

“Eh, call it a hunch,” Marisa said, and sprawled in front of the table. “... and Yukari stopped by my place and told me. That helped, too.”

“Huh.” So Yukari had to meddle even with this. Great.

“S-sorry,” Sanae said. Sniffling, she pulled away from Reimu and wiped her eyes with the back of a hand. “I was just... by the time I got to you, you were unconscious, and they were operating. I-I was afraid I wouldn't even get to say goodbye...”

“Yeah, things looked pretty bad for a while there...” Marisa agreed. 

“Oh. Sorry.” What did you even say to that? “It's nice to see you, though.” Reimu gave Sanae a gentle pat on the back.

“Yeah. I'm glad you're okay.” Sanae squeezed into the half-hug, then leaned back with a sigh. “Oh, um! But did you hear that I'm the one that exterminated the youkai?”

“Yukari told me, yeah. Thanks, I guess.”

“Hehe~. That thing was pretty speedy, but I got it in one good hit. Not bad, huh? … um. Anyway. So you're okay now?”

“More or less...” Reimu said, and glanced toward the kitchen. “... let me put some tea on, it's kind of a long story.”

* * *

Reimu told them everything that she could remember, from the night in the woods to the events of the previous day. By the time she finished, their tea had grown cold.

Marisa was left staring at her in blank disbelief. “A youkai, huh.”

“Yeah... I already am one, kind of. Apparently.”

“Huh...”

“Um,” Sanae said, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. Reimu wasn't sure how she was taking this news. She'd spent the whole story nodding along with interest, but was now staring at the ceiling with a look of idle consideration. “Turning into a youkai... isn't allowed, right? If a human tries it, aren't we supposed to ex—“

“Nobody's exterminating Reimu,” Marisa said. It was a simple statement of fact. She held Sanae's gaze until it was clear that the other girl had dropped the topic, then turned back to Reimu. “... still, it's weird to think that you're a youkai now. Pretty ironic.”

“I guess.”

“What kind of youkai?” Sanae said. “There are a lot of different ones, right?”

“I don't actually know.” Reimu hadn't considered that. The range of youkai was pretty large, and she wasn't even sure what she _was_ now. It was a discomforting realization. “A... general kind of youkai, maybe? Like Ichirin. Or part whatever-Yukari-is.”

“Huh...” Sanae looked over her with renewed interest. “So you don't even know if you have any powers or anything?”

“Not really...” Reimu lifted one hand and looked at it thoughtfully. For all she knew, she already had half of Yukari's powers or something. … but probably not. That would be a bit too convenient “Anyway, I can't be the shrine maiden like this. I have to find something else to do, but...”

“The thought of you getting a job like a normal person is pretty weird,” Marisa admitted. Rubbing the side of her neck, she leaned back and looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Can't you just be a youkai exterminator?”

Reimu shrugged. “No powers.”

“Eesh. That's rough. It'd probably take years for me to teach you magic or something.”

“And our shrine doesn't really need another miko,” Sanae said with a sigh. “What other kind of skills do you have? Everybody in the village probably knows you, so it ought to be easy to get another job once you know what you're good at, right?”

“Well, um. Not... a lot.” It was true, she had to admit. She was a decent cook and could patch up clothes, but not well enough to make a living out of it. She could fish a little. That was about it.

“Hmm. You could be a shopkeeper or something,” Marisa said. “A lot of 'em might appreciate having somebody who knows how to deal with youkai around.”

“I guess...”

“Ehe. Of course, if you got a job somewhere like that, I wouldn't be able to drop by and talk in the middle of the day or anything.”

“Yeah...” Reimu's heart sank at the idea. Moving into the village would come with complications like that. Suika, Aya, the fairies, Remilia... there were a lot of people who hung around the shrine that weren't exactly welcomed with open arms in the village.

The same thoughts seemed to be running through Marisa's head. “If you got a job with Kourin, at least you could still see people...”

“Or at the mansion!” Sanae said. “They need a lot of maids and stuff there, right?”

Reimu nodded, but only because she didn't have the heart to openly shoot down the ideas. Working for Remilia seemed like... well. She didn't have Sakuya's infinite patience. It probably wasn't a good idea. And she had a sneaking suspicion that Rinnosuke barely broke even most weeks, so he probably didn't need an assistant. “Or... I might take Yukari's offer. I'm still thinking about it. She did kind of save my life.”

“I've probably saved your life at least once, and I don't see _me_ gettin' any youkai servants out of it,” Marisa said, half-jokingly. “You've got to do what's best for you, and let Yukari worry about herself. I'll tell you what—give me a few days to ask around town and see what I can drum up, okay? There's got to be _something_ out there for the biggest badass in Gensokyo.”

* * *

Reimu had to hand it to Marisa—her secondhand job search really was tenacious and thorough. By the end of the day, she was already turning up leads, but... the results weren't promising. Cleaning fish by the river. Serving drinks in a bar. At best, Reimu might help an elderly couple on their rice farm, with a chance to inherit it after they passed away. She _wanted_ to give them all fair consideration. Try as she might, though, she couldn't feel anything but dreary resignation when she pictured herself doing any of them for the rest of her life. 

After spending a lifetime fighting and socializing with youkai, she'd never felt at home in the human village. Even as a child, she hadn't really been a part of it. Now, the villagers who weren't afraid of her because of her shrine's reputation just saw her as a weapon. Their concerns weren't her concerns. And as much as she hated to admit it, the thought of moving back there, surrounding herself with humans who saw every youkai as a threat, never waking up to find that Suika had crashed on her floor at 2 AM or that fairies were playing tag in her front yard... it kind of hurt. It seemed really boring.

She'd never thought of youkai extermination as something that she _enjoyed_ , but she had to admit that she would miss it. Without the orbs, she wasn't much good in a fight. As things were, she'd never quite be Marisa's equal again. Or Sanae, or Youmu, or... nearly anybody that she knew, really. If she turned down Yukari, she might never have another spell card duel.

The thought shouldn't have hurt, but it did.

There were other complications too. Even now, she kept finding her thoughts drifting back to Yukari's one question, recorded in perfect clarity in her not-quite-human mind. _Why do you think that I was willing to take you as a shikigami?_ Even if she wanted to, it would be a bit hard to convince herself that this was all part of some scheme. The memory of Yukari, looking terrified and vulnerable as she'd bent down over Reimu's rapidly-bleeding body, made that difficult. It was obvious that Yukari had been driven by urgency and emotion, so... what? If there was supposed to be some deeper meaning, it was eluding her.

Reimu wasn't sure when she made up her mind. It wasn't a hard and logical decision. She'd never worked like that. It was a slow, dawning realization, spread over days of an increasingly joyless job search. She simply woke up one day and started putting the shrine in order. One last cleaning to get the place tidy for its next inhabitant, and then she started packing her belongings.

There weren't many of them. Most of the shrine's contents belonged to the shrine itself. The furniture stayed. There was no point in bringing food or cooking utensils. Her clothes were mostly shrine maiden outfits, which she... wasn't going to be needing anymore. Once everything like that was sorted out, her worldly possessions amounted to a few dozen articles of clothing, a handful of souvenirs and knickknacks from Kourindou, and a small pile of books. Altogether, everything that Reimu owned, every physical record of her twenty-three years of life, fit into a single large sack. She would only need a single trip.

Once her belongings were packed up, there was only one thing left to do. With the inclusion of a few coins that she found while cleaning, her life savings totaled 3285 yen. She could pretty easily hold it all in her cupped hands, but they heaped just high enough that she still had to focus on her balance as she carried them out the front door.

Reimu circled around the donation box and approached it from the front, then dumped the double-handful of coins inside. All of her money had come from youkai-hunting or the shrine. It only felt appropriate to give it back before she left.

Besides, she felt like she owed the kami. Whoever was enshrined here, they'd been her silent partner for a decade. Even if she'd been frustrated at their silence sometimes, leaving without at least saying goodbye felt too cold. As she bowed and clapped in front of the donation box, she almost convinced herself that the god might speak up with a parting message. It remained characteristically silent. Maybe it would be more talkative with the next shrine maiden, whoever they were. She could only hope.

After several minutes spent in prayer, Reimu stepped away from the donation box and made a final tour of the shrine's grounds. Throughout it, a realization just kept building in her mind: the next time she came here, it would be somebody else's home. The shrine wasn't large, but she still managed to spend the better part of hour wandering it, getting one last look at everything. When she walked back into the living area, there were tears in her eyes. Her vision blurred as she got out her writing supplies.

The brush was comfortable in her hand; she'd spent days of her life with it, writing piles of ofuda by muscle memory. Today, she only had one last message to write:  
 **THE HAKUREI SHRINE IS TEMPORARILY CLOSED.**

The ink was still drying when she posted the sign on the front door. It probably wouldn't deter curious youkai, but she felt like she owed any human visitors at least some explanation. 

With that, there was nothing left to keep her. Reimu gave the shrine one last lingering look, then threw the sack of her belongings over her shoulder, leapt into the air, and took off for the closest point on the barrier.

* * *

In her unplanned rush to vacate the shrine, Reimu had forgotten one thing: Yukari slept during the day. She ended up knocking on the door for five minutes before she accepted that nobody was home and awake. Instead of the dramatic arrival that she'd pictured, she spent the rest of the day sitting on the front step until Ran came home, hours later. Not until the sun was going down and Ran had started cooking dinner did Yukari come out of her bedroom. Despite the fact that she'd apparently just woken up, she looked as well-groomed as ever. Reimu had never quite been certain whether that was a general youkai thing, some strange ability that only Yukari had, or if Yukari was just very meticulous with her grooming. Yukari paused in the doorway when she saw Reimu, but didn't miss a beat. “Well, welcome back.”

“Good evening...” Reimu said. She already knew what she'd come here to say, but even so, she found the words sticking in her throat. “I-I. I've made my decision.”

“Straight to the point, hmm? Before we talk about that, how about we have dinner?”

* * *

Dinner at the Yakumo household was an odd affair. Reimu had eaten with groups before, of course, but usually with dozens of people at parties or feasts. Eating with a group of three or four was something she'd only done a few times, and even then, the conversation was usually dominated by Marisa trying to steal the choicer bits of food off of somebody's plate. This, though, reminded her of nothing more than the few times that she'd eaten with families. Ran gently coaxed Chen into minding her table manners, while filling Yukari in on her day's activities. Keeping track of the number of lost outsiders who'd come through the border, determining how many youkai they could feed... Reimu suspected that it was partially a test for herself, meant to tease out any squeamishness that she still had. She kept her attention on her food and minded her own business.

When it was all done, Yukari gave Ran a kiss on the cheek—Reimu had seen them kiss a few times when they got a quiet moment during festivities at the shrine, but it still made her avert her gaze in embarrassment—and rose to standing. She led Reimu back through the house, to a room that she hadn't seen before. One wall was lined in bookshelves. Even compared to Patchouli's library, most of the books looked ancient. The room was otherwise mostly empty, with only a table and a few pillows. Yukari knelt on one. “Now then,” she said, once Reimu had done the same. “What have you decided?”

“Well...” Reimu fumbled, trying to find the right words. “I wish that I could keep being the shrine maiden, but you were right. I can't. I can't even touch the orbs like this. And there isn't really anything for me in the village. I don't really like to admit it, but... I'd miss all of you youkai, if I only got to see you once a year or something. Um. S-so.” Reimu cleared her throat and pushed her thoughts back on track. She hadn't quite intended to give that much of an explanation. “I'm... here to talk about becoming your shikigami.”

Yukari was smiling, but she'd been smiling since they entered the room. Reimu supposed that the big sack of her belongings in the main room had probably made her choice obvious. “I'm glad to hear that. We could finish the process tonight, if you're willing.”

“I don't see why not...” Even so, Reimu had spent so much time thinking about the broader implications of it—becoming a youkai, no longer being the shrine maiden—that she'd barely considered the actual fact that she was going to be a shikigami. Her mind drifted back to Ran's memory again, and the foreign thoughts that buzzed through her head. Was it going to be like that the whole time? She'd already come to think of the crystal clear memories that she'd developed since the attack as the shikigami part of her mind. Was it just going to encompass more of her? She tried not to think about that too much. Ran was already a shikigami, and she was practically the most normal-sounding youkai in Gensokyo when she wasn't rattling off probabilities. 

Yukari nodded. “It's easier to finish your programming if you're asleep, so if you'd like to go to bed after this, we can get started. But first,” she said, then leaned closer, with a challenging smirk growing on her face, “have you solved my riddle yet?”

“Not really, no. I don't think you planned it or anything... I guess you just didn't want me to die.”

“Simply enough, yes. I didn't want to make a big deal about this before you'd made a decision, because I didn't want it to feel like I was pressuring you... but saving you was a risk, and I don't take risks lightly. I've permanently given you a piece of my soul. Thanks to the bond between us, when you die, I will be unwell for months. And getting my stomach ripped open wasn't all that enjoyable, either. … I don't say this to make you feel obligated to me for what I've done, but to help you understand how important I felt it was to save you.”

“... w-well, thanks.” Reimu had frozen in place, and she had to very consciously force herself to move, trying to adopt a more casual posture. She could feel that she was blushing profusely, and it was only made worse by Yukari's unshakeable demeanor. “I don't see why I'm so important, though... Without my shrine maiden powers, I'm not much of a fighter.”

“I never said it was a matter of ability. I've seen a dozen generations of shrine maidens. Honestly, you're not the most powerful of them. But none of them were quite like you. If all I wanted was a tool, I could bind an army of spirits large enough to fill Gensokyo. Somebody I'm comfortable spending centuries with is much rarer.”

If Reimu had been embarrassed before, now she felt like she might die from it. What did you even _say_ to something like that? Some distant part of her brain managed to make her squeak out, “I'm honored?”

It seemed to satisfy Yukari, at least. For once, she didn't tease Reimu over her embarrassment for half an hour. She satisfied herself with reaching out to caress Reimu's cheek before she rose to standing. “Well then. Why don't we get you moved into your new room, and Ran and I can get to work?”


	6. Chapter 6

Some polite, but insistent, presence in Reimu's head nibbled at the edge of her consciousness. With a groan, she rolled over and pulled the covers tighter. The bed was impossibly soft, and all she wanted to do was sink into it and sleep for a few more hours.

It was too late. As soon as she noticed the presence, it latched onto her. There was a moment of tension, and then a cool, electric feeling of clarity spread through her head. It faded, and she was left simply _knowing_ entire branches of mathematics. Before she could adjust to this bizarre experience, something else was already tugging at her attention. 

The new additions to her mind lined up, and one by one, they made themselves known.

They were silent, but they were _there_ , fresh and still-tender bits of her consciousness. Taking stock, she found that she already knew their purposes. One would give her a sense of her location, as long as she could see the stars. One would translate between languages. One would allow her to package up her memories, like Ran had. They stretched on, dozens of them, and after spending twelve minutes and forty-eight seconds (somehow, she just _knew_ ) surveying them, she turned her attention away and sat up.

As soon as she opened her eyes, other changes became apparent. First and foremost, she could sense the boundaries around herself, in a way that both came intuitively and didn't quite make sense. Looking toward the doorway, she _knew_ right where the boundary between the bedroom and the hallway outside was. It was as obvious as the fact that the sheets were violet. The boundary between the house and the outside was an invisible layer over the window. Beyond it, she could see the boundaries between the Yakumo family homestead and the outside world, the boundary between the ground and the sky...

It was like having an extra sense. The experience was overwhelming at first, but after a few minutes of experimentation, she found that she could filter it out or focus on specific boundaries when she wanted. She also got the sense that she could manipulate them, as easily as she might open the window, but... that seemed like a really bad idea. Maybe later, with Yukari around.

Once the initial surprise faded and her emotions settled down a little, she could feel the subtler changes. The main one: Yukari. She was there in Reimu's mind, like an undercurrent beneath her consciousness. Focusing on it slightly, she tapped herself into Yukari's emotions without even intending to. The briefest taste of satisfied happiness diffused through her mind, while still carrying the undeniable sense of Yukari. 

It instantly bolstered her mood, even while she wondered about the implications. The thought of sharing every emotion with Yukari, for the rest of her life, made her feel... vulnerable. Especially after Yukari's uncharacteristically earnest confession—what had _that_ even been about?—last night. If she did that again, would Yukari know her emotions the whole time? 

Before she'd made up her mind about the bond, she felt Yukari's presence through it, like the mental equivalent of a hand on her shoulder. Her voice soon followed. _”Ah, good, you're awake. Ran and I are in her workshop. Would you like to join us?”_

It took a moment to sense how to send a message back. With a simple, _”Okay,”_ she slid out of bed and shuffled out of the room.

Now, Reimu found that she knew every room of the place, and was able to pick the path toward the workshop without a moment's consideration. It was obviously something that Yukari had put there, and she knew that she should be uneasy at the foreign knowledge. It didn't _feel_ foreign, though. It felt as natural as it would if she'd lived here for years, herself. She was comfortable enough that she'd already made a brief detour to the kitchen, grabbed an apple for breakfast, and taken a bite before it occurred to her that she should probably ask permission before taking food. Oh well. When it came to food, Yukari almost definitely owed her.

Stepping into Ran's workshop, Reimu had the strange experience of seeing a room that was both familiar and completely new to her. It was cozier than Yukari's bedroom, with an overladen table of sewing supplies, a dress form, a few crayon drawings on the wall, a stool, a wooden toolbox, and a shelf holding dozens of bolts of cloth and other sewing supplies. The desk alone held a dogeared copy of the I Ching, a dish of worn coins, several figurines that looked like they'd been made in the human village, an inkstone and brush, a pile of astrology references, a framed black-and-white photograph of a forest that Reimu didn't recognize, and a typewriter. Next to it stood an overladen shelf full of books that, judging by their covers, could only have come from the outside world. The place barely felt big enough for two people, let alone three. Ran and Yukari were on the far side of the room, and Ran was running cloth through a whirring machine that Reimu didn't immediately recognize. At this point, _not_ recognizing some of the weird stuff in this place was almost reassuring.

Ran seemed too wrapped up in her work to even notice Reimu. Yukari, though, smiled back to her over a shoulder. “How do you feel?”

“... strange,” Reimu said, and carefully picked her way across the room. “My head feels like it's going to pop. Do I really need all of that stuff?”

“You'll get used to it in time. … and I see that you've already helped yourself to breakfast.”

“O-oh, um.” Reimu had almost forgotten about the apple in her hand. Once she'd recovered from her initial surprise, she took an oversized bite, then held it up. “It's payment for that one you stole from me last fall!”

“Reimu,” Yukari said. “You live here now. Eat all the apples that you'd like.”

The misstep would normally leave Reimu embarrassed, but now, she could feel Yukari's amusement through the link. It blunted the edge, leaving her to come down from it gently. It was a strangely intimate feeling, like a whispered secret. Even physically close to one another like this, the sense that Yukari was _right there_ was... companionable. She didn't have to tap into it if she didn't want to, but in some sense, she'd never be alone again if she didn't want to be.

That would take some getting used to.

Apparently her self-reflection was obvious, since Yukari broke her out of it by saying, “It's okay to ease into things. The skill set that I gave you is a bit more specialized than the one Ran got, so you'll need longer to adjust than she did. We'll have plenty of time to go over the details later. In the meantime... have you thought about your new surname?”

“No, I haven't...” Another thing that had slipped from Reimu's mind with everything else that was going on. “I guess I should probably do that.”

“There's no rush. You're not constrained to a human lifespan anymore. Take a few decades, if you'd like. It's not mandatory, but it's traditional for a shikigami to take their master's surname, once both parties are comfortable. Chen will be joining the Yakumo family soon, herself.” Smirking, she added, “'Reimu Yakumo' has a bit of a ring to it, don't you think?”

Yukari was obviously trying to get a rise out of her, and Reimu held off on the urge to tap into Yukari's emotions to ease her own embarrassment. Instead, she hid her blush by taking another large bite of the apple. If she was living here, she was going to have to get used to dealing with this kind of thing. _Reimu Yakumo..._ “I'll keep it in mind.”

“Just a suggestion~.”

“Oh, Reimu,” Ran said, without looking up. It was a welcome interruption. “Are there any clothes you'd like? I have a few dresses in mind, but we didn't know if you'd want anything else...”

Only now did Reimu actually look at what Ran was making. It was a dress, similar to Ran's own: White, with a cerulean panel down the center, which Ran was already sewing decorative flourishes onto. _I guess that's going to be mine..._ She'd realized that she couldn't just keep cycling through the handful of outfits that she'd brought for the rest of her life, but she hadn't considered what she was going to be wearing instead. She supposed that the dress that Ran was making now would be her all-purpose outfit from now on. That was comfortably familiar, at least. Between her lack of funds and her laziness, she'd worn the shrine maiden outfit for everything from combat to parties. “... maybe something to keep my hair out of my face.”

“A hat?”

“Some bows would be nice, if you can.” She probably shouldn't do red and white anymore, but it didn't mean she had to totally abandon her personal style. 

With a thoughtful nod, Ran's focus returned to her work. For a minute, the only noise in the room was the hum of the sewing machine as Ran guided the cloth through a series of careful maneuvers, as fast and precise as anything that Reimu had ever seen Alice accomplish. “This should be done soon,” Yukari said, glancing over to her. “Would you like to go finish settling in? I can run you through the paces of your new abilities afterward.”

* * *

Not that Reimu had much to unpack. Her clothes left the armoire cavernously empty. With Yukari's permission, she was able to commandeer a small bookshelf from one of the less-used studies, but her small collection of books looked ridiculous on it. She compensated by grabbing two dozen more from the study, since she found that they now made sense. Flipping through a philosophical treatise on destiny, she noticed a spot where the author had miscalculated an astronomical projection. Uncomfortably, she shoved it back on the shelf. Understanding things like that was going to take some getting used to.

The few personal items Reimu had—her comb, mementos from friends and former enemies, and gadgets from Kourindou—got divided between the still-empty shelves and the top of the vanity. In the end, the room was left feeling slightly less sterile and empty, but it still didn't feel like it was _hers_. Not in the way that the shrine's living area had. Maybe she'd have to go into the human village and buy some decorations later, assuming she could get her hands on some spending money.

Just as she had finished settling in, Ran had delivered her first completed outfit, and now, it was spread out on the bed in front of her. The dress hadn't changed much since she'd seen it, just a few finishing touches. Along with it, Ran had made a fat ribbon for her to tie her hair up with; remarkably close to the ones she'd worn as a shrine maiden, apart from the blue cloth she'd used.

Pulling the dress on, Reimu was surprised at how well it fit. It covered more of her body than the shrine maiden outfit had, from her shoulders all the way down to her ankles, but the cloth was somehow both light and warm, and it left her movements unrestrained. After putting the bow into her hair—and sighing with relief at finally getting it to stop tickling her shoulders—she walked over to the vanity to inspect herself.

It was surprising how much difference a change of clothes could make. Compared to the vibrant red of the shrine maiden outfit, the blue and white looked more... relaxed. The softer colors left her brighter eyes to draw attention, in a way that she found intimidating. The bow in her hair offset the effect a little, but even that was a bit different, a less stiff cloth that drooped down under its own weight, commanding less attention. Combined with the longer, slightly more traditional dress, she felt like she looked five years older just by putting it on. It might get her a bit more respect the next time she went into the village, at least.

Reimu turned side to side in front of the mirror a few times, getting a better look at herself and trying to figure out how to stand with the decorum that the outfit seemed to demand. After a minute of this, she gave up on the effort. She'd never worried about that kind of thing when she was the shrine maiden, and she didn't need to start now. After sizing herself up one last time, she turned and headed out to find Yukari.

* * *

Yukari was on top of Reimu the second that she stepped outside of the house, peering over her outfit and making the occasional adjustment. “Hmm, that look suits you better than I'd thought it would. I knew that I made the right choice in letting Ran pick the colors.”

“It's not bad,” Reimu agreed, and ducked away from a fussing hand in her hair.

“A shame about the lack of tails. If you had those, you could be the prettiest shikigami in Gensokyo.”

The word 'pretty,' coming from Yukari's lips, would usually leave Reimu fuming in annoyance. Today she tried to shrug it off, and eased herself into the link with Yukari again. Yukari's emotions came drifting out like before, a subtler, more affectionate mix. _So she's not always joking when she says that stuff..._ “I-I wouldn't know about something like that,” she said, and hurriedly changed the subject. “Are you going to tell me what we're doing out here?”

“Straight to the point again, hmm? Once you've lived for a few more decades, you might learn to enjoy taking detours now and then.” Yukari stepped back, though, and gave Reimu some breathing space. “Hmm. To start off with, have you experimented with manipulating boundaries?”

“Not really...”

“Well, let's give it a try,” Yukari said. She turned to walk a few meters away from the house. She pulled her hat from her head and sat it on the grass, then took a step away. “Let's call this lesson one: Can you grab my hat?”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“I suppose you'll just have to figure that out, won't you?”

Reimu squinted at the thing, trying to figure out just what Yukari was playing at. She allowed her sense of boundaries to fade back in, once more partitioning the world into smaller sections, separated by infinitely thin lines. She didn't see how it was supposed to help with the situation. There were no boundaries running from her to the hat, though... unless.

She raised one hand, and tried to get a more tactile feel for the boundaries around her. If she focused, she could feel millions of them, _billions_. Like a tiny grid through the air that kept all the world's contents separate from each other. Pushing even further, she could feel boundaries that were grander and more subtle. The point where _now_ became _then_ , the line in her heart between _love_ and _hate_ , the border of _fantasy_ and _reality_... and then she found it. Twisting the line between _here_ and _there_ , Reimu convinced the universe that two parts of itself were one and the same.

The distortion began as a pinprick in the fabric of space-time, but with focus and concentration, she coaxed it wider. It spread, and soon ripped itself open, like a wound in the universe's side. From the formless darkness within, unblinking eyes stared out. In the air over Yukari's hat, another one split open.

 _”Very good,”_ Yukari's voice came in Reimu's head, and she could feel her guiding presence helping to stabilize the gap. _”It's a brute force approach, but I can show you something more elegant later.”_

Cringing, Reimu plunged her hand into the gap. It poked out through the second gap, over the lawn. She could feel the sunshine on it, then the soft cloth of Yukari's hat under her fingers. She snatched it up, and breathed a sigh of relief as the hole in the air healed in front of her. For a moment, her imagination had been filled with images of the gap snapping closed too early, shearing her hand off in midair or something. “... does it always take that much concentration?”

“It gets easier with practice,” Yukari said, and started back toward Reimu. “You picked it up very quickly for a beginner, so I don't think it will be a problem for you.” She took her hat and settled it back on her head. “But that was only the warmup. Now then, _shikigami_ , let's see if I can't find you an actual challenge.”


	7. Chapter 7

Yukari had indeed found more challenges for Reimu. She spent the next several days exercising her new powers—making gaps faster and farther away, tweaking the border between illusion and reality to let her reach into a mirror and grab her reflection's hand (she was really trying her best not to think too hard about that one), taking a stroll along the inside of the Hakurei Barrier to prove that she could reinforce the weak points, putting her new divination skills to work until she could correctly predict the result of a coin flip nine out of ten times... even with her newly-enhanced mental abilities, it was exhausting.

But the rhythms of her day-to-day life barely changed. She woke up, she ate, she trained, she had another meal, trained some more, had another meal, relaxed for a few hours, took a bath, and went to bed.

The mundanity was almost surprising. Even after they'd become friends, Yukari had always had a mystical air about her. Reimu couldn't picture Yukari having something so plain as a routine. Yukari showed up when you least expected it to take a tithe of sake and drop some cryptic hints. Yukari knew everything that happened throughout Gensokyo, even when nobody involved had seen her for days. Yukari was a _force of nature_ , a creature of mystery.

On Reimu's third day in the household, she found Yukari and Ran relaxing on the couch, lazily cuddled together and discussing the best day to dry the laundry.

If Reimu had ever bothered to try, she wouldn't have been able to imagine the discussion. Yukari just didn't feel like the type of creature who could worry about such petty topics as laundry. In a sensible universe, Yukari's outfits would have materialized onto her body from a force of will, already crisply pressed and smelling lightly of flowers. It only felt right.

It turned out, the reality was far more prosaic: It was easy to cultivate an air of effortless perfection when nobody could see how much work it took to maintain.

By comparison, Reimu's adjustment to Yukari's mostly-nocturnal schedule was straightforward. As a youkai hunter, regular sleeping hours had always been a luxury. Now that she was a youkai, she just had to get used to the opposite end of it.

Today was the first day that she woke up on time by herself, in the late afternoon. By the time that the sun was sinking toward the horizon—in two places, thanks to the strange wraparound barrier of the Yakumo homestead—she had taken care of her basic hygiene, and found herself with an hour of free time before the evening meal. Now, she was curled up under a tree, idly playing with Chen.

Reimu jerked her hand in the air, miming several tosses. Chen watched every single one, her body twitching with anticipation. “Are you gonna throw it, or what?!”

“Don't be so loud, jeez. Are you ready?”

“I've _been_ ready.”

“Fine, then.” With a flick of her wrist, Reimu tossed the coin. Chen pounced toward it, a grin on her face... and just before she could snatch it out of the air, a gap opened mere millimeters in front of it. The coin vanished, and her hands swished through empty air..

Chen landed on the ground, both tails twitching, and pulled her hands back to find them empty. Her eyes instantly turned toward Reimu's palm, where the coin was glittering in the evening light. “H-hey! That was too quick!”

It was one of those games that just seemed to come into being wherever there were small children. The rules were fuzzy, and mostly sprang from Chen's head as they played. Reimu would throw the coin, then try to gap it away before Chen could snatch it. It was good practice at gap manipulation, at least. In the interest of fair play, she usually gave Chen a second or two head start. Usually. “Maybe you're just too slow,” Reimu said, and gave the coin another flick.

Chen leapt into the air again. Her hands clawed wildly toward the coin. This time, she got to it just before Reimu could tug it away. With a sharp-toothed grin of satisfaction, she slapped it out of the air and pinned it to the grass. “Who's too slow _now_ , huh?!”

“Don't get cocky, I'm still ahead of you,” Reimu said. 

It was strange. She'd never had much experience with children or cats before, but dealing with Chen was coming naturally to her. Maybe it was because Chen was so straightforward. Even when she tried to lie, she was about as subtle as a brick to the face. It was refreshing after second-guessing Yukari all day.

Inside the house, she'd been hearing the sounds of cooking from the kitchen ever since she'd woken up. She knew from experience that Yukari would be awake by now. Ran was inside as well, probably performing their almost ritualistic morning and evening routine, filling each other in on any developments and... whatever else it was that they did when they were together.

Only once had Reimu checked on Yukari's mental link when she was alone with Ran. It had been an innocent mistake, trying to get a feel for whether she had time to take a walk before dinner. Instead, she'd gotten a taste of Yukari's emotions for Ran. She'd pulled back immediately when she realized, but it had left lingering impressions: joy, happiness, contentment. They weren't emotions that Reimu had ever expected to associate with Ran, let alone like... _that_. Just thinking back to it left her blushing. There couldn't be much doubt that the pair had a relationship that went a bit deeper than just master and shikigami.

So. That was a thing. It only seemed polite to give them some space. Besides, she did enjoy these sessions with Chen. With a momentary gap, she stole the coin out of the bakeneko's palm and held it up again. “Whoever wins this time gets the other person's portion of fish at dinner.”

Chen's eyes fixated on the coin, and her ears tilted back at an aggressive angle. Reimu could almost see the visions of fish dancing behind her eyes. “Deal!”

Reimu pulled the coin back and aimed, trying to keep Chen waiting so that she could catch her by surprise. Double portions of fish for breakfast sounded pretty good.

Before she could throw it, though, Chen perked up her ears and looked back toward the house. Reimu considered throwing it while she was distracted, but the door opened. Yukari and Ran stepped out, hand-in-hand, with Ran carrying a wicker basket. This seemed to mean something to Chen, and she took off running toward the two. 

“Reimu,” Yukari said with a smile, “How would you like to go on a picnic? The moon should be beautiful tonight.”

* * *

The spot that Yukari had chosen for the picnic was, of course, exquisite. They'd come out of the Hakurei barrier on the south side of Gensokyo, in the middle of rolling foothills. It was a remote area, kilometers away from the nearest settlements. They were on a hill just tall enough to look out over the landscape. Below, scattered forest below faded into grassland. Just beyond that was the human village, a constellation of torches and lanterns in the twilight. Farther away, Youkai Mountain was half in shade, casting a long shadow across everything to the east.

As soon as they arrived, Chen ran toward the trees, her eyes already on the birds, while Ran spread a cloth on the ground. After setting the places, she began withdrawing items from the basket: two bottles of sake, water, cream stew, dried persimmons, fuki tempura, and some kind of baked custard dish that Reimu didn't recognize.

Reimu became fairly certain that the basket was just for show, and Yukari was concealing a gap inside. It seemed like too much food to fit in there. … It seemed like too much food in general, really. “Isn't this a bit much for four people?”

“It's a feast,” Ran said, as she pulled the cap off of a bottle of sake and started filling cups.

“Huh? It's not a holiday or anything, is it?” A quick glance at the sky assured Reimu that it was 6:22 PM, March 29. She could now name dozens of significant historical events that had happened on the date, but none of them were really worth celebrating. She felt silly for asking such an obvious question, but being a living almanac took some getting used to.

Nobody called her misstep. “Our household has gained a new member, and I've gained a new shikigami,” Yukari said. “Don't you think that's worth a celebration?”

"Oh. Um." Reimu found herself fidgeting with the sleeve of her outfit. She wasn't used to people doing this sort of thing for her. Demanding parties _from_ her, sure. Throwing celebrations for her, not so much. "... thanks."

“It was Yukari's idea,” Ran said. “She woke up early today to make the custard herself.”

“I didn't know that lazy youkai _could_ cook.”

“It may be crispy in places,” Yukari said, with an absolutely straight face that left Reimu uncertain whether or not she was joking. She resisted the urge to cheat by peeking at the mental link. “I did my best, but Ran has done most of the cooking for the last few centuries.”

“She's a great cook,” Ran reassured Reimu. “Could you please go tell Chen that we're almost ready to start? I think she'll actually listen if it's you. Yukari spoils her too much.”

* * *

A giant bowl of stew, an impressive pile of fuki, two persimmons, two cups of sake, and one of the custards later, and Reimu was... mostly satisfied. Her hunger had been growing sharper, lately, and even that small feast left her feeling like she could make room for more. If every youkai had an appetite like this, it explained a thing or two about how often they'd dropped by the shrine for meals.

Not... that she wanted to think of herself as a youkai yet.

Now, after eating for most of an hour, the sun was fully set. True to Yukari's word, the moon was beautiful tonight. Reimu didn't need the light—acute night vision seemed to be one of the few physical changes she'd developed—but it still gave everything an ethereal blue cast. Ran was kneeling on the hillside with Chen, while Reimu had remained on the cloth with Yukari. She was nursing a third cup of sake, but she wasn't in a rush. At this point, she'd hit just the right state, relaxed and suffused with warmth, but not quite ready to trip over her own feet. "That custard was pretty good."

"Thank you."

"... I really didn't know that you could cook, though."

"You might be surprised by how many hobbies a person can take up in two millennia," Yukari said. She leaned forward, resting her chin in one hand, with her cup dangling from the fingers of her other. The posture was just inelegant enough to make Reimu wonder how many drinks she'd had. "Sewing too. I'd thought about designing your shikigami uniform myself, but Ran insisted."

"Huh, why?"

"Mmh, well." Yukari looked down at her drink, giving the glass a few slow rolls with her hand, then took a sip. "Apparently my ideas were 'inappropriate.' It's a shame, the bared midriff would have been cute."

"I don't think I need an outfit like that," Reimu said, struggling to keep her voice level.

"That's unfair. You haven't even heard my thoughts on the thigh-high stockings yet."

"You're terrible," Reimu said, and lifted her glass for another sip to hide her smirk.

"I'm afraid that it's your fate as a shikigami to put up with a good-for-nothing master like me. Please be patient." Yukari emptied her cup and sat it aside. She breathed a long, satisfied sigh, but when she spoke again, the teasing tone had left her voice. "How are you settling in? Do you feel like you're adjusting?"

"Well... I'm getting better with the new powers, right? I won't know for sure until I have to use them in a fight or something, but..."

"That's good, but I don't just mean your abilities. What about emotionally? Are you comfortable?"

"Oh. Um. I... guess. I hadn't really thought about it."

"I know that the training has taken a lot of your time. It's just as important to keep yourself happy, though." Yukari's gaze trailed down the hillside, to where Ran and Chen were sitting. They were playing what looked to Reimu like some kind of variant of hide-and-seek, with Chen hiding in and around the voluminous fluff of Ran's tails. At the moment, Ran was doing her best to pretend not to notice Chen, as the girl crept around to kneel behind her. "Like I said earlier, you're not just my shikigami, but you're a member of this household. If there's anything that you need, you can ask."

"Right..." As Reimu watched, Ran turned around and snatched Chen off of the ground. Surprised, Chen flailed, laughing loudly enough that it carried up the hill. “I guess it's just different than I expected.”

“Oh? How so?”

“I don't know. I thought it would be all... plotting and sneaking around.”

“I'm sure that there will be some sneaking around sooner or later. You'd be surprised at how much one can accomplish with a well-developed rumor mill, though.” Yukari looked over to Reimu, clearly amused. “You were expecting more action, then?”

“A little.”

Yukari nodded. “I won't deny that I'm ruthless when I need to be, but I prefer to use a light touch. Gensokyo is nearly self-governing these days. I like it that way. It's much nicer to spend the evening with a good drink and better company, don't you think?”

“I wouldn't know. The only drinking partners I ever get are a bunch of noisy youkai,” Reimu said, now too relaxed to bother trying to hide her amusement at her own joke. Down the hill, Ran had somehow ended up face-first against the ground, with Chen sitting on her back and swatting at her tails. "... I've been wondering. How old is Chen, anyway? She seems... young, for a youkai.”

"Youkai don't mature the same way that humans do. But yes, Chen is a child. She had only been a youkai for a few days when Ran rescued her."

"Rescued?"

"She was living in the human village when she became a bakeneko. Youkai hunters were after her. We took her in to save her life. That was nine years ago."

"Oh.”

Nine years... the thought led to some bad places. Reimu had been the shrine maiden for ten years. Exterminating new youkai who popped up in the village had been one of her clear-cut duties. Young youkai rarely had the discretion not to attack humans. Leaving them to their own devices didn't end well. It was best for everybody if they were exterminated before they could hurt anybody.

Or so the common wisdom said. Looking at Chen, who was currently wrestling one of Ran's tails and trying to bite it, Reimu found herself glad that Ran had gotten to her first. If Reimu had been the one to find Chen, she would have exterminated her. There was no question about it. If she'd followed all of the rules back in the bamboo forest, she'd be dead by now, herself.

She tried not to wonder how many other youkai like Chen she'd exterminated as the shrine maiden.

“So she's like me,” Reimu said.

“Mmhm. It seems like Ran and I both have a bad habit of taking in strays,” Yukari said. As she spoke, she reached over to pat Reimu's head, taking great care to ruffle her hair as much as possible.

“Are you calling me a _stray_?” Reimu tugged at her bow and tried her best to straighten her hair up again.

“Hmm, perhaps,” Yukari conceded, with a teasing smile. “You're certainly scruffy enough. But if you'd prefer, we can call it... Things that have nowhere else to belong.”

“That doesn't sound much better.”

“There's no shame in it. Most of the best things don't belong anywhere. Gensokyo was founded on that idea, after all. Humans only believe in things that are useful, but not surprising enough to challenge their worldview. Everything else, they call 'fantasy'... and it ends up here.”

“A land for useless weirdos. That explains a lot.” Keeping up with Yukari's banter was a bit easier when she'd had a few drinks. The trick was to relax enough to roll with the punches. She drained her cup, then looked to the moon as as the slight heat faded from her throat.

_Nowhere to belong, huh?_ To part of her, the past few days—living in Yukari's strange personal universe, having meals with the Yakumo family, being able to see the boundaries that made up the universe—still felt like a slightly surreal dream. Any minute now, she'd find some loophole that would let her go back to being the shrine maiden, and the natural order of things would reassert itself.

But that wasn't going to happen, was it?

Reimu sat her cup aside, then pushed herself to standing. With her hands resting on the back of her head, she looked out over the landscape. “Anyway, to answer your question... I'm pretty happy for now, I guess. Things seem to be working out.”

“Ahh. Well, I'm glad.”

“... hey, Yukari?”

“Yes?”

“I never did say, um...” Reimu trailed off with a sigh. She knew how that sentence needed to end, but summoning up the humility to actually say it was another matter entirely.

Below, Chen seemed to have finally burnt through her energy and settled down for a nap. Ran was pinned beneath her, and staying very still. Reimu smiled to herself. “... thank you. For saving me, I mean.”

Reimu was used to Yukari taking any sign of emotional vulnerability as an opening to tease her. Tonight, though, she only smiled in return. “It was my pleasure.”


	8. Chapter 8

In one corner of the lawn, the low-hanging branches of two trees meshed together. Here, twice a week, Yukari held her council of crows. In front of her, the branches were bowed down heavily under the weight of a dozen of them. The birds would stand calmly for a while, until one would caw and break the silence. After a brief conversation, Yukari would either reward it or move on.

It wasn't the first one that she'd held since Reimu had moved in, but it still struck Reimu as pretty weird.

 _"What do they even tell you?"_ she asked mentally, from her spot watching the ritual on the front step.

 _"Current events, mostly,”_ Yukari replied. _”Crows are curious creatures. They're often the first ones to notice a change in Gensokyo. Occasionally, they can run errands, too."_ One of the crows in front of Yukari tilted its head, peering at her face. After some time, it erupted in a sudden 'caw!'

Yukari looked at the crow critically. "And what does it look like?"

Another caw. Yukari pressed on. “But how large is it?”

Now the bird seemed less certain. It shuffled a few centimeters along the branch. When it remained silent, Yukari pointed at her house. “Is it smaller than that?” she asked.

The crow followed her finger with its eyes and looked blankly at the building. Another caw. "Hmm. I see. Thank you." Yukari dipped two fingertips into a small gap. When she drew them back out, there was a small chunk of banana between them. She tossed it over with a flick of her wrist. The crow snatched it up, while the others puffed their wings and let out a cacophony of protest.

 _"What did it say?"_ Reimu asked, once they'd quieted down.

_"The Moriyas have started building something behind their shrine. It's probably just a storage building, from the sound of it... but it might be worth a visit just in case."_

_"Huh."_

"Now, anybody else?" Yukari said, already dipping her fingers back into the gap. The crows continued tilting their heads around, avoiding her gaze in what seemed to Reimu to be a guilty manner. A slow news day, maybe. "Hmm, well then..."

Yukari was interrupted by another crow descending from the sky. Flapping its wings wildly to maintain control, it managed an awkward, one-legged landing on a branch. A small envelope was clenched in its other talon. It dipped its head down to transfer the envelope to its mouth, then offered it over.

"Ah, thank you," Yukari said. After taking the envelope, she flicked the crow a piece of banana, and the others cawed in protest again.

_"... mail?"_

_"I do allow youkai to hire them to carry letters. It's a useful way to communicate, as long as you don't mind a few carrion stains."_ Yukari ripped the envelope open and unfolded the letter within, then skimmed over the contents. “Ahh, well, this is interesting.”

“What is it?”

“One moment.” Turning back to the crows, Yukari withdrew the remainder of the banana from a gap. “Thank you for your assistance, as always. That will be all for today.” She dropped the banana to the ground, and the birds dove on it in one motion. After wiping her hands clean with a handkerchief, she took a seat next to Reimu and held the letter up.

In tidy, clipped characters, it said:

Lady Yakumo,  
I'm sad to say that we in the village have had a difficult time enjoying this fine weather. With no shrine maiden, the humans have been very tense these past two weeks. I hope that this letter finds you in better spirits than they are.

I apologize for the short notice, but I have discovered that the expected candidate has proven her ability to inherit the Hakurei blessings. Her inauguration will take place on the morning of April 2.

Please give my regards to Lady Ran, as well.  
— Umeki

Reimu stared at the letter, rereading it a few times for full effect. April 2 was tomorrow.

“Who's Umeki?” she said. It was the only thing in there that she was comfortable bringing up.

“A zashiki warashi.” Yukari handed the letter over. “They help keep an eye on events in the village. Not that the villagers need to know that, of course.”

Reimu nodded numbly, but she was barely listening. Cold surprise burnt its way across her mind. The next shrine maiden. Her successor. Logically, she'd known that this moment would come. Now that it was here, she felt unprepared. “How does it work...?”

“The formal selection of a new shrine maiden, you mean? I might hope that you remember, you did go through it yourself.”

Reimu grunted. She couldn't, really. She had only been thirteen when she was chosen. For a few weeks, she'd been surrounded by frantic adults, asking her barely-comprehensible questions and ferrying her from one place to the other. The one thing that had stuck with her for years afterward was how worried everybody had been. The actual details seemed to have slipped from her mind. And then... what? There was her life before, a barely-remembered existence of playing in the streets of the village and getting into fights with the other children, and there was her life after, as the fully-fledged shrine maiden protecting Gensokyo. The entire transitional period was a blur, even in retrospect.

All she could remember, the only concrete thing, was: the first time that she flew had been exhilarating.

“Everything at this point is perfunctory, really,” Yukari said. “Showing that she can use the shrine's blessings is the last hurdle, and she's already cleared it. All that's left now is to show her off in a ceremony and make sure that everybody knows it's official.”

“Huh...” It didn't feel real.

“I don't plan to attend the ceremony, myself. New shrine maidens can be... unreasonable, until they've had a few years to adjust to the realities of the job. But if you'd like to go, you—“

“I'm going,” Reimu said, without a moment's hesitation. It felt like a responsibility or something. She might not have been the shrine maiden anymore, but she still felt a duty to make sure that the switch went smoothly. 

If she could ease the transition for her replacement, even just a little, it would be worth it.

* * *

From the air, the Hakurei shrine grounds were a blotch of vivid pink on the landscape, practically illuminated by the surrounding cherry trees. The sight didn't bolster Reimu's mood as much as it should have. This would be the first year since the Spring Snow Incident that the shrine didn't host flower-viewing parties for days on end. This should have been a time for relaxing with her friends. Instead, it was her first time visiting her home as an outsider.

In front of the shrine, a temporary stage had been set up by the front door. The crowd gathered around it was already quite large, but even from above, she could tell that she didn't know many people in it. The attendees were mostly villagers, with only a smattering of the flashier outfits that usually marked youkai and outsiders. Spotting the familiar point of Marisa's hat, she angled toward it and dropped closer. Marisa and Alice were on the edge of the crowd, with Marisa seated on her hovering broom to make up for her lack of height. Reimu had barely landed before she realized that Marisa was staring at her. "Hi. ... is something wrong?"

"Your clothes," Marisa said, stifling laughter. A snort finally forced itself past her guard, and as she broke down snickering, she just barely managed to add, "You look like a grumpy little Ran!"

"It's a normal shikigami uniform..."

"Hello, Reimu," Alice said with a sigh. "For the record, I think they look nice."

"Thanks." As a few nearby spectators turned to see what all the ruckus was—Marisa was nearly doubled over on her broomstick with laughter—Reimu looked out over the audience. The front doors of the shrine were closed, and with nothing to focus the crowd's attention, the spectators seemed torn between somber waiting and excited conversation. Like they couldn't decide if this was a celebration or a funeral. "Has it started yet?"

"They just took her inside. Something about presenting her to the kami," Alice said, and turned a curious eye toward Reimu. "I hear that you're a youkai now."

"Apparently. I don't really feel like one."

"It's subtler than you expect going in, isn't it?"

"Maybe a little.” With all the changes to her life over the past couple of weeks, Reimu couldn't exactly call _anything_ that she'd gone through lately 'subtle.'

"Oh, uh, that reminds me," Marisa said, once she finally managed to stop laughing. "You, um. You've got a bit of a reputation in the village these days."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know. Changing shrine maidens is a big deal. It's kinda the only thing anybody's talkin' about. But word's kinda got out that you're still alive, so now people know something weird is going on."

"... okay..." Reimu had no idea where this was going, but she could tell that it was nowhere good.

"I mean, people always said some pretty sketchy stuff about you, with the 'youkai shrine' thing and all, but it's getting pretty bad now. Apparently the big rumor right now is that you've been a youkai all along. Or you're a youkai that ate the real shrine maiden a few years back and took her place? Something like that. ... but yeah. If you'd taken another week or two to make up your mind, I think somebody would've showed up at the shrine with torches and pitchforks."

"Oh." Reimu looked out over the crowd. There _were_ a few people looking her way. Coincidence, or was half the crowd worried that she was going to start eating people at any second? "W-well! I can't do anything about things like that anyway."

"Yeah. I just thought it was kinda funny. Like, thinkin' that _you_ were a tanuki or somethi—"

A murmur ran through the crowd, and Marisa trailed off. Every eye was now turning toward the shrine, where the front door was opening. From the relative darkness within, two lines of men walked out. They were all dressed in somber black yukata, with their heads bowed. Reimu recognized about half of them as elders from the village. They were usually her contacts for paid youkai extermination jobs. ... which might make things awkward, if rumors had gotten around that she was a youkai now, but she'd deal with that when it came up.

The men climbed the stage, and spread out into two lines along the back of it. When the very last of them was in position, the new shrine maiden stepped out the door.

She was... 'young' was the first word that came to Reimu's mind, but she was probably years older than Reimu had been when she started. Fifteen or sixteen, maybe. She was tall for her age, and her black hair stretched halfway down her back, with her bangs cut in a straight line just above her eyes. Combined with the composure with which she carried herself, it gave her a certain regal air. Even the dangling sleeves of the outfit seemed to sway elegantly in time with her other motions.

It was strange seeing somebody else in the shrine maiden outfit, and even stranger to see the yin-yang orbs orbiting around her and the purification rod resting in her hands. Not only had Reimu moved on from her old life, but somebody else had stepped into it. The next time an incident came up, this girl would be the first one flying out to resolve it. The next time that Aya thought that the Hakurei miko's activities would make good news for a slow day, or Kasen wanted to make sure that the shrine's spiritual affairs were in order, or something creepy was happening around the village, they'd go to this girl.

Upon reaching the center of the stage, the new miko paused. Lowering her head, she raised the gohei in both hands in front of herself and began a slow, solemn kagura dance. It was one that Reimu had performed a few times, herself. She still knew it well enough to subconsciously follow along with the motions. It made her feel melancholy, in a way that seeing the shrine again hadn't. 

For the first time since her decision, Reimu mourned for her lost humanity.

* * *

After the ceremonies, the villagers had lingered for some time, turning the occasion into a social gathering. Reimu kept her eye on the new shrine maiden, but didn't want to approach her just yet. It seemed... clumsy, to have the sort of conversation that they needed to have surrounded by dozens of onlookers. So, Reimu lingered near the edge of the crowd, chatting with Marisa, Alice, and the few youkai who hadn't left as soon as it became obvious that the gathering wasn't going to turn into a drinking party.

Within an hour or so, the crowd was quickly thinning out. When she spotted the girl stepping away to go inside, Reimu decided to seize the only chance that she might get. Slipping through the crowd, she headed toward the front door of the shrine as stealthily as she could.

 _Shiko Hakurei_. It was the one thing she'd gotten out of the string of speeches and congratulations that had followed the ritual: The new shrine maiden's name was Shiko.

Her own name had been conspicuously absent from the speeches, she'd noticed.

Reimu had pushed the door to the shrine open before she'd remembered that she should probably knock. Reflexes from years of living here. She rolled with it, though, sliding her shoes off before heading further inside. The shrine was still mostly in the condition that she'd left it. The furniture was in the same locations, and the items that she hadn't taken with her still sat on the shelves. The fact that the new girl—Shiko, she kept having to remind herself, and burnt the name into her perfect memory—hadn't had time to settle in was obvious. There were still a few bags and boxes near the door, probably her belongings. The only new additions were a futon and pillow that weren't Reimu's, and a few books on the shelves. It was subtle, but the shrine had already started its transformation into somebody else's home.

The only sounds were coming from the kitchen, so Reimu headed toward it. Inside, Shiko was bent over, struggling with the pump to fill a cup with water.

“The seal's been cracked for a while,” Reimu said, assuming an apologetic tone without meaning to. “You have to kind of push the handle back, or it can't get suction.”

The girl stiffened up, then shot Reimu a look of mixed annoyance and confusion over her shoulder. “... thank you,” she said grudgingly, and turned back to the pump. After a few slower cycles of it, water began gurgling out into her glass. “You're the former shrine maiden, aren't you?”

“Yeah, I am. Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude or anything.” _But this is supposed to be my house._ “I thought that I should probably introduce myself and offer to help you with your training.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Shiko lifted her now-filled glass and turned away from the pump. She studied Reimu over the rim as she took a sip. “It's Reimu, right?”

“Oh! Yes, Reimu Ha—" Reimu stopped mid-word, as she remembered that she'd lost all right to the Hakurei name. "Reimu."

"I'm Shiko Ma—er, Shiko Hakurei.”

The exchange of unfamiliar names left an awkward silence afterward, and Reimu struggled to fill it. “So, um, how long have you been training?”

“Since I was twelve. I've been on a few youkai exterminations with the hunters from the village, and the Hieda family has been letting me study the full Gensokyo Chronicle.”

“Huh...” It was a lot more training than Reimu had ever gotten. The village's youkai hunters weren't good for much except taking out the occasional stray beast youkai, but it was better than nothing. "You knew, then."

"That I was going to be the next shrine maiden?"

"Yeah."

"There was one other girl who volunteered when I did, but she washed out," Shiko said, and took a sip of her water. "After that, I was the only candidate."

Reimu nodded along... then paused. "You volunteered for it?"

Shiko raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you?"

Reimu could only remember being tested. Say this prayer. Place this seal on this box. Perform this ritual. Even in retrospect, most of it didn't make much sense. Had she gotten a choice? She couldn't remember. "I... don't think so." 

Shiko held her gaze for a moment, then turned and walked toward the living room. “When I was little,” she said, hesitantly, “this new girl arrived in town. We started playing together every day. I was happy at first. Most parents tell their kids to stay away from the orphanage, you know? But after a while, Miss Endou realized that she didn't know where the girl lived. She asked around, and nobody did. It turned out that she was a tanuki. They had her exterminated.”

“Huh. Do you know what she was doing there?”

“You tell me. You're the one who exterminated her.”

“... oh.”

“I was angry at first. She was my friend, and she hadn't hurt anybody that I ever saw. But... we didn't know what she was up to. She could have been planning to eat somebody... after a while, I realized that you'd done the right thing. You might have saved my life, for all I know.” Shiko took a sip of her water and ran a fingertip across the rim of the glass. “I was already one of the oldest kids in the orphanage by then. I tried to be kind of a big sister to the younger girls. Most of them had lost their parents to youkai in the first place. I thought, if she had eaten one of them, after everything they'd already been through... So. When they started looking for candidates, I volunteered.”

“Well, um. I'm glad to have helped.” _Apparently._ She couldn't even remember the details of the incident. Remembering her talk about Chen with Yukari, she tried not to think about it too hard. She decided to change the subject. “… so, is Miss Endou still so stingy with rice?”

Shiko blinked in surprise at the question, then laughed softly. “Of course.”

Reimu nodded in sympathy. Even now, she could still hear the woman's voice scolding her anytime she got seconds at dinner. “Anyway, if there's anything I can do to help you settle in...”

“Hmm.” Shiko considered that as she drained her glass, then sat it on the table. “While we're at it, do you mind if I ask you some questions too?”

“Oh. Sure, if you want.”

“... why couldn't you be the shrine maiden anymore?”

That hadn't been the question that Reimu was expecting, and it wasn't one that she looked forward to answering. Part of her wanted to gloss over it entirely. Say that she'd been injured and couldn't fight anymore, or something.

"I... got injured," she said, and wished she could have left it there. "A friend of mine was able to save me, but there were some complications."

“What do you mean?”

Reimu couldn't bring herself to answer.

“Nobody was able to tell me what happened,” Shiko continued. “Not even the elders seem to know.”

“She... made me her shikigami. To save my life.”

“A shikigami?”

“Yeah...”

Now, Shiko seemed almost afraid to take her eyes off of Reimu. Several seconds passed in expectant silence. “So, are you a human,” she said softly, “or are you a youkai?”

Reimu's mind seized up on that question. There was really only one answer to that, and she wasn't sure if she could bring herself to say it. “It's complicated, but I'm... technically a youkai.”

Shiko nodded. Every muscle in the girl's body looked taut now. For a moment, Reimu thought she was going to throw a punch. “If you were a villager,” she said, in the strained voice of somebody struggling to remain calm, “I'd have to exterminate you.”

“Yes.” Reimu couldn't argue that.

“I can't take youkai-hunting advice from a youkai.”

“I guess you can't, can you?” Under other circumstances, Reimu would have laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. Here she was, being threatened by the Hakurei shrine maiden. She was almost certain that she'd been on the other side of this conversation with Yukari, years earlier.

Shiko subtly gestured with one hand, and the yin-yang orbs rolled across the floor, then levitated up to hover beneath her palm. From years of experience, Reimu knew that all it would take was a single gesture of her hand and they would fly out, with enough force to shatter human bones. “I think you should leave.”

“I...” Reimu hesitated, as the two stared at each other across the room. It felt like there had to be something she could say, _something_ to set this right. Nothing was coming to mind, though. Instead, the only words she found were, “... I'm sorry.”

If Shiko heard the apology, she gave no indication of it. Reimu wasn't about to linger any longer and find out of the girl had the resolve to attack her. Stepping backward, she made her way out of the shrine. She didn't dare to take her eyes off the new shrine maiden until she was out the door.


	9. Chapter 9

_Are you a human, or are you a youkai?_

Reimu had planned to sleep for a few hours after returning from the shrine, but sleep wasn't coming to her. Instead, the question had been haunting her thoughts.

She still _felt_ human, but doubts kept squeezing their way into her mind. They'd been there for days. Every time she felt Yukari's presence in her head. Every time she opened a gap, or looked at the sky and found herself effortlessly picking out constellations that she'd never learned.

Even after the point when most of her friends were youkai, she'd always associated it with the darker side of all things. Youkai were, at their hearts, creatures of selfishness or darkness. Whatever was at her heart felt like it had gone mostly unchanged.

It wasn't what she'd wanted out of her first meeting with the new shrine maiden. She'd blown it. Nearly gotten into a fight with her, even.

The worst part was, she wasn't even sure if Shiko had been in the wrong.

Reimu had been tossing and turning for— _three hours, twelve minutes, fifty-eight seconds_ —when a knock came on the door. “Reimu,” Yukari said from the other side. “Can I come in?”

Reimu pushed herself up to sitting and looked at the door in confusion. Yukari should have still been asleep for another hour or two. “Yeah, sure.”

The door slid open, and Yukari stepped inside. She was wearing an outfit that Reimu had never seen before, and it took a moment for her to put a word to it: _night gown_. Like Patchouli wore, but even plainer. Her hair was also down too, without a single bow in sight, and with no hat. It was strange seeing her like this. Reimu had always been aware that Yukari had to sleep in _something_ , but even Yukari's most casual outfits had meters of lace and ruffles and ridges, usually with multiple layers. Such a simple outfit looked almost stark, by comparison.

Yukari closed the door behind herself. “Am I to take it that the meeting with the new shrine maiden didn't go well?” she said, as she crossed to the foot of the bed.

_How did you know?_ Reimu almost asked, but stopped herself. Mental link, right. Sometimes it was hard to remember that Yukari could spy on her emotions as well. “... a little. Shouldn't you be sleeping?”

“Shouldn't _you_? Besides, I haven't heard about the new shrine maiden yet. It's important to stay informed about this kind of thing,” Yukari said, in a tone of voice that didn't even attempt to hide the fact that it was just an excuse to help Reimu sort through her thoughts. “So, let's hear it.”

Sitting cross-legged, Reimu glowered at the bedsheets. She couldn't find a satisfying way to put her thoughts into words. Looking back on it, the confrontation felt far too petty for her to be getting this worked up over.

Instead, she pulled the memory up in her head. It was only a moment's work to package it up, and with a mental gesture, she shoved it toward Yukari. “Here. Just watch it for yourself.”

“Hmm? Let's see here...” Yukari's eyes drifted shut. “... ahh, so this is what it feels like to be you? I'd be grumpy all the time, too.”

“Just shut up and pay attention.”

“Right, right...” Yukari went silent. The ghosts of expressions flickered across her face. It was strange. Reimu wondered if Yukari's face was mirroring her own actions in the memory. When it seemed to come to an end, her body slowly returned to its regular posture, and she let out a long breath. “... I see.”

“That's it? 'I see'?”

“There was a lot to consider,” Yukari said. She seemed more restrained than usual. Her posture was stiff. _Was I really that upset when I left the shrine?_ Reimu wondered. “... I have another riddle for you, if you're in the mood for it.”

“Huh? What is it?”

“What is the difference between humans and youkai?”

Reimu stared blankly at Yukari as she considered that. It was one of those questions that sounded so straightforward that it had to be a trick. Her first impulse was to give a dismissive answer— _youkai eat humans, humans exterminate youkai_ —but she resisted the urge. Yukari seemed serious, for once. “Youkai are created from human belief, and they scare and eat humans.”

“Hmm, but gods are sustained by human belief, too. What's the difference between a youkai and a god?”

“Gods are the good and awe-inspiring things, and youkai are frightening and unclean ones,” Reimu recited. She might have messed up the shrine maiden job pretty badly, but she liked to think that she knew a _few_ things.

“Can gods not inspire fear, though?” Yukari's voice was taking on an increasingly challenging tone. Reimu knew from experience that it meant that she was in for a long argument. “Are there not awe-inspiring youkai?”

“Just what are you getting at?”

“My point is, there's no clear division. There are youkai-like humans and human-like youkai and everything in between.”

Reimu frowned. “You can't just say they're all the same thing.”

“It's the opposite, really. Every youkai, god, and human is unique in their own way. There is a massive, multidimensional spectrum. Like color or gender, the lines that humans use to divide them are more reflective of humanity's perceptions than the underlying truth.” Yukari took a seat on the edge of the bed. “There are certain inescapable facts of your new existence. You'll always be linked to me. Your body will continue changing to reflect your new nature. But everything else... how you behave, who you make friends with, what you do with your life... that's all up to you. Whether you become a human, a youkai, or a god, you'll always be Reimu.”

“I guess.” It wasn't entirely reassuring. Reimu had always sensed that the lines between youkai and humans were thinner than Gensokyo's social order would imply. Yuyuko was less likely to attack humans than a random teenage boy was, she was pretty sure. Seeing the entire social order reduced to a meaningless abstraction, though, was a step farther than she was immediately comfortable with. “... so if the categories are pretty much arbitrary, why even bother?” _Why did I spend ten years of my life defending humans from youkai, if you have to squint to tell the difference?_

“Why? Well, humans find it very hard to function without sorting things into categories. You could say that dividing things up with boundaries is the basis of all thought.” For a moment, Yukari's smile looked very, very... distant. And then, she patted the bed and stood up, back to her normal glib self. “But sitting around arguing philosophy is no way to help you relax. It's still a few hours until dinner, but why don't we make something quick for ourselves, then start your training for tonight early? Some good, wholesome exercise might do you well.”

* * *

Reimu took a deep breath and concentrated on Yukari's hands. Cupped in them was a gleaming pile of one yen coins. Fifty of them, to be exact. Focusing, she could pick them all out, and assigned them each a number to keep them separate in her head.

“Are you ready?” Yukari said.

“Yeah,” Reimu said, and let her breath out slowly. “I'm ready.”

Yukari nodded, and drew her hands downward. Then, in a single motion, she thrust them back up. Fifty coins took off in parabolic arcs, spinning and wobbling through the air, gleaming in the moonlight. Before the last one had left Yukari's hands, Reimu's head was already filled with the humming machinery of her new mental software. In the blink of an eye, she calculated fifty trajectories, adjusted for air resistance. She performed fifty mental divinations on the coins' final resting positions. She projected collisions, calculated friction, and made adjustments.

She raised her hands, and with a single grand gesture, filled the air with hundreds of tiny gaps.

The coins disappeared, only to re-emerge a split-second later from different gaps, at new angles. The air filled with a metallic clamor as dozens of them impacted one another. They ricocheted back and forth, rebounding off one another, bouncing into gaps, and repeating the process. It was a flashing storm of light, and it roamed through the air, herded along by an ever-drifting cloud of gaps.

One coin dropped out of the mess and landed on the front step. Another coin landed on top of it. The other coins continued bouncing in the air until, one by one, they funneled downward to land, one atop another.

The last coin fell into place with a tinny _click_ of metal on metal. Fifty coins, in a tidy stack, all denomination-side up. Reimu breathed a sigh of relief.

“Hmm.” Yukari raised one eyebrow and walked over to the pile of coins. She crouched down to inspect it. “Did you figure out what you were doing wrong before?”

“I hadn't thought about the engravings on them. They affect stuff a little with the air,” Reimu said.

“Very good~. We'll teach you to think like a shikigami yet.”

“I hope not,” Reimu said. The analytical way of thinking no longer left her exhausted, but it didn't quite come naturally yet, either. She suspected that the entire point of these exercises was to help accommodate her to it. There was certainly no _other_ circumstance where she was going to need to sort a bunch of airborne coins. It was a way to show off her abilities in a controlled environment, and nothing more. A parlor trick. Like the time Marisa had proven that she could Magic Spark a sake bottle off of a fairy's head, given enough attempts and a large enough supply of fairies.

Yukari scooped the coins up and deposited them in a gap, then walked across the lawn to take a seat at the base of a tree. She patted the ground next to herself. “So, did it work? Is your mind clear now?”

“I... oh.” Reimu sprawled on the ground next to Yukari. The training had lasted for hours. In the time they'd been at it, Ran and Chen had come home, had dinner, gone to bed, and the sun had set. At some point, she'd stopped fretting over her confrontation with the new shrine maiden. “... yes, actually.”

“Good, good. Try to keep it that way. Worrying is for humans. It doesn't suit us youkai.”

“Uh-huh.” With a yawn, Reimu squirmed against the grass to get comfortable. During the night's activities—hours of sorting coins, dodging wave after wave of attacks, refining the few spell cards that she'd put together—she'd been too focused to pay much attention to anything else. Now that she was laying down, her lack of sleep was catching up to her.

Above, the sky had gotten dark, and the stars had finished coming out. They were... amazing. She'd never paid much attention to them before. Marisa had pointed out constellations to her dozens of times, but she'd never been much good at seeing the patterns on her own. Now, though, the heavens contained more information than the thickest book. She knew the names of the stars, and could pick out every constellation. She knew their paths, and the infinite cosmic dance that had brought them to their current positions. Like a rich painting, whenever she thought she'd seen it all, a new detail jumped out at her.

It was a warm night, the stars were beautiful, and the only sounds were the soft chirps of crickets in every direction. It was a relaxing enough situation that she wasn't even aware that she was drifting off until Yukari scooted over and lifted her head for just long enough to rest it in her lap. “Ngh. What are you doing?”

“Helping you relax. You look tired.”

Reimu couldn't bring herself to protest. Yukari's lap _was_ pretty comfy. It was the kind of situation she never would have allowed as the shrine maiden, but... she was no longer the shrine maiden. Yukari's fingers started brushing through her hair, and she found the gesture comforting. Lowering her mental guard, she allowed herself to taste Yukari's emotions, and found warm, lazy satisfaction mingling with her own. Like the distilled essence of lingering in bed on a warm morning.

When she had been the shrine maiden, Yukari's unconditional-but-teasing support and affection had seemed manipulative. Just another youkai attempting to curry some favor with her, and not even bothering to be subtle about it. Now that Yukari didn't have much to gain from her, she had to consider an even more terrifying possibility: that Yukari actually _meant it_.

Not that she could give in quite that easily. “You're too bony to be a pillow,” she said, as her eyes drifted closed.

“I assure you that Ran is doing everything in her power to fatten me up,” Yukari said. Her fingers kept toying with Reimu's hair, but she went silent for a minute before continuing softly. “Starting tomorrow, I think that we'll make your training less formal. You've learned the basics. You should take some time to relax. Go visit friends that you haven't seen since your accident. Drink tea all day, or... whatever it is that you did as a shrine maiden. Just enjoy life.”

“Sounds pretty nice,” Reimu murmured. She was too tired and cozy to make a show of being suspicious about the offer. With another yawn, she rolled onto her side and shifted her head a few times to get it into the exact right position on Yukari's calf. “Sure, I'll think of something.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yukari's thoughts on colors here are, admittedly, very similar to something that she says in the doujin Spectral Feelings -Invisible Violet- by Rireba, which was one of the main inspirations that eventually led to this fic.


	10. Chapter 10

[](http://i.imgur.com/Pfzu1K4.png)

Reimu tilted her head side to side, inspecting herself in the mirror. As always, her strikingly violet eyes drew in her gaze and made it hard to look away. Now that she'd gotten used to the new color, she kind of liked them. They looked... regal. Dangerous. It lent just a bit of an exotic edge to her otherwise prettily plain features.

A bit more concerning were her teeth. She hadn't even noticed it happening, but her canines had elongated at some time over the past week, taking on pointed tips. She pulled her lips apart and inspected them, tilting her head side to side and exploring their edges with her tongue. Not quite long enough to be called fangs, but they gave her smile a bit of the sharp, predatory edge that she'd learned to associate with youkai.

She'd just have to take care to control her expression, then. Once she was satisfied, she straightened her bow and gave her clothes one last adjustment. With that, she was ready to go out.

It was what she needed, she'd decided. It had been almost two weeks since she became a shikigami, and apart from the trip to the shrine, she'd barely left the house. When she'd lived at the shrine, company had ways of finding her. Here, she was going to have to take the initiative if she wanted some variety to her days. She'd spent enough time training and worrying lately. Now, it was time for her to relax.

Plus, Yukari had offered her a generous amount of spending money. That certainly helped.

The house was silent when she stepped out of her room. She'd gotten up early for this, waking up just past the mid-afternoon. It was one of the calmest times around the house, with Yukari sleeping, Ran usually out running errands, and Chen... doing whatever it was that cats did when nobody was watching. Every morning, she hurried off in the direction of Mayohiga, and in the evening, she always seemed to come back a bit dirtier than when she'd left. Ran didn't seem concerned, so neither was Reimu.

With nobody around to keep her, Reimu made her way out of the house and to the edge of the yard. She'd gotten a feel for the layout, and headed in the right direction without conscious thought. Even without using her boundary powers, she could tell when she crossed the invisible line into Gensokyo. The wind picked up subtly, and the air was filled with the spring sounds of birds and insects. After weeks of mostly-nocturnal living, the sounds of the day seemed energetic and cheerful. It bolstered her mood, and with a kick, she launched herself into the air and headed toward the road.

* * *

Life in the village was just as busy as in the forest, with children running from place to place, workmen carrying parcels between shops, merchant carts lining the streets, and plenty of people just strolling to enjoy the weather. It helped relieve Reimu's anxiety over her first visit to the village as a youkai. Her strange outfit and violet eyes might draw attention under other circumstances, but here on the busy street, nobody was likely to even notice her.

It was strange, though, being here in the bustling heart of the village. This was the life that she'd turned her back on when she agreed to become Yukari's shikigami. She passed along the side of a square, where the farmers had set up their stalls for the day. They went about their regular activities, haggling with customers, chasing children away from cages of chickens, stacking produce in crates, relaxing in the shade to escape the sun... if she'd gone a different route, any one of them could have been her. She paused for a moment and tried to see herself in their positions. Tending to crops all morning and selling them in the afternoon, only to spend her earnings on necessities and go home, ready to sleep and do it over again tomorrow. It did have an attractive simplicity.

… if she thought about doing it for a few weeks, at least. Doing that for years, not so much. She couldn't dedicate herself to working so strenuously for a living. She'd gotten too accustomed to long afternoons of resting on the shrine's steps, sipping tea and enjoying the breeze. In that one dimension, maybe, she'd always been more like a youkai than a human.

Reimu's circuit around the city was slow and meandering. She'd planned to buy more belongings to fill her mostly-empty room, but wasn't sure what she was looking for or where to buy it. The shrine had just sort of naturally filled itself over the years, with little odds and ends that she'd gotten as gifts, strange things that Marisa had packed in to show her, and detritus that drifted in from the outside world. Purposely shopping for things was something that she'd rarely had the time or inclination to do.

So, she wandered into shops that caught her eye. It was an interesting way to spend a day in its own right. The village held dozens of shops dedicated to selling art, clothing, sculpture, jewelry, furniture, books, and curios, and she'd never visited the majority of them. In one, she bought a few candles. In another, a decorative vase for flowers. A small jar of konpeito to snack on between meals. A woodblock print of flowering cherry trees. The best part was, as soon as she was out of sight, she could open a gap and tuck the purchases away, instantly depositing them in her bedroom. She had to admit, the shikigami thing had its advantages.

And disadvantages. It didn't take long for her to notice somebody across the street watching her fearfully. And then it happened again, when a small group crossed the street to avoid her. In a few shops, the conversation came to abrupt silence as soon as she walked in. The worst part was, she wasn't even sure why. Her outfit did sort of scream 'youkai' to a seasoned Gensokyo native. But did they recognize her? Had Marisa been right, and most of the village already suspected that she was a youkai? Could _that_ many people recognize her on sight?

By the late afternoon, the constant anxious glances were taking their toll on Reimu's mood. It didn't help that she felt like she was starving. Her hunger hadn't ebbed at all, and she was now nearly insatiable. Her meals seemed to disappear into her stomach without effect, and always left her wanting more. It was starting to concern her, but for all she knew, this was a normal part of being a youkai. She'd definitely seen plenty of them drink more than a human could ever hope to survive. Maybe an endless appetite came with the territory, too. It didn't help that the smell of some delicious food seemed to permeate the village, always goading her appetite onward. She couldn't quite place it, but it smelled warm and hearty. Maybe people had taken the nice weather as an opportunity to cook outside.

Cutting through a few dark alleys, Reimu slipped into a more familiar street. There was only the occasional pedestrian here, and the signs were less flashy. Many of the shops were the sorts that wanted less attention in the first place: Curio stores that dealt primarily to youkai, herbalists that dealt with the kinds of problems that required discretion, fences, a handful of more legitimate shops that had fallen on hard times. The only welcoming landmark was Suzunaan, sitting right on the edge. It was one of the shadiest districts of the village.

So, of course, Marisa had chosen it for their meeting spot.

“Yo!” Marisa's voice was unmistakable, even in the small crowd. Before Reimu could turn around to look for her, she'd been half-tackled in a hug from behind. “Hey, I caught a youkai!”

This was immediately followed by the unfortunately familiar _grind-whirr_ combo of a camera advancing its film. “Not so loud!” Reimu said, and squirmed within her grip enough to allow herself to look over her shoulder.

She turned around just in time to be blinded by the flash of Aya's camera.“Hey, hey! Don't mind me, try to act natural! Natural!" Aya said, already readying herself for another shot.

"Aya. I—" The camera flashed again, and Reimu flinched. "Do you really have to do that?!"

"Hehe, sorry." Aya held her camera up to demonstrate that she was done for the moment. "This whole shrine maiden switch has been really big news, you know? I've got five articles just waiting for pictures of you before they can go to print. ... can I get a few more?"

“I'd really rather you didn't...” Reimu rubbed her eyes. As her vision slowly cleared, she realized that Sanae was standing behind her, too. “... hi, Sanae.”

“Um, hi,” Sanae said, seeming like her usual upbeat tempo had been completely thrown off by Aya's interference. “... your outfit looks nice! Pretty cool, actually.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“I tried to get as many people as I could, y'know? Give you a big welcome back to the social scene after being gone for a while,” Marisa said, and released Reimu. She straightened her hat and looked out over the small group. “... but, uh. It didn't really work out. Sorry. Most of the small fry youkai are tryin' to avoid the new shrine maiden right now.”

“... huh? What happened?”

“It's a long story. Point is, nobody wants to risk it. Except Aya, 'cuz she's nuts.”

“I've never met a shrine maiden I can't outrun!” Aya said, and gave her camera a proud shake before tucking it away. “And I might add, Reimu, that you'd know about this kind of thing already if you had a Bunbunmaru News subscription. … interested? I've got a deal right now where you get three months for—“

Part of Reimu was perversely interested in the idea of buying a subscription and watching Aya try to figure out where she lived now. … but knowing Aya, she'd probably be just tenacious enough to pull it off somehow. Better to not risk it. “Maybe later,” she said, with no intention to ever continue the conversation. “For now, can we get some food? I'm starving.”

* * *

Reimu had the money to cover it, but still felt embarrassed as she ordered two of the udon shop's largest bowls. They were each the size of her head, and she downed them ravenously, while Sanae watched in amazement. She couldn't help it. It was what her new appetite demanded.

It was starting to grow worrying.

By the time that she was slurping up the broth in the second bowl, the others had been done eating for some time and fallen into conversation. In a way, she was glad that Marisa hadn't managed to get a bigger group together. She'd drawn plenty of attention by herself, and now that Marisa was seated across from her, trying to wrestle Aya's notepad free to read it, there was barely a patron in the shop that wasn't shooting them dirty looks now and then. Something had to be done.

“You two,” Reimu said, and pushed her now-empty bowls away, “are going to get us kicked out at this rate.”

“Huh?” Marisa said. Her current position, kneeling on the bench and craning for Aya's upheld book, was precarious. A wing slapped her in the face, and she recoiled. “H-hey, watch those things!”

“Hah, can't take your own medicine, Kirisame? I'll have you know that you smacked me with your broom at least half a dozen times last summer.”

“That was business, it's different!”

Reimu loudly cleared her throat, and the two stopped mid-argument. She might not have been the shrine maiden any longer, but most residents of Gensokyo still had a finely-tuned survival skill for detecting when they were getting on their last nerve. They sat back down, with Marisa grumbling and Aya preening over her apparent victory.

“Anyway!” Aya said. In a manner so casual as to seem barely worth noticing, she flipped her notepad open and flicked her pen into position in her other hand. “How have you been, Reimu? Is that shady gap youkai treating you well?”

Reimu eyed the notebook. “Is this an interview?”

“Ah, that's cold, Reimu, that's cold! I'm only asking as a friend, of course.” As Aya spoke, she was already taking notes.

Reimu had ago learned that there wasn't much benefit to denying Aya an interview. If she couldn't get the details for an article, she was more than happy to invent some herself. Besides, in this case, maybe it couldn't hurt. Half of Gensokyo was probably still wondering where she had disappeared to. She sighed at the prospect of giving into Aya so easily anyway. At this rate she was going to be heading home with a lifetime subscription to the Bunbunmaru. “I've been fine.”

“Really?” Sanae said, sounding surprised. “So Yukari's been treating you well?”

“Yeah, she has. I was a little surprised, myself.”

“Huh... oh! Your new eyes!” Sanae leveled a finger at Reimu's face. “I never noticed them before! They're pretty!”

“Um, thanks.”

“What's the deal with that, anyway?” Marisa said, while doing her best to peek at Aya's notes without being obvious about it. “I mean the pointy teeth, sure.” Dammit, Reimu had been hoping it wasn't that obvious. “But why purple eyes?”

“I don't know. I think it's a Yukari thing. Because I'm part gap youkai or whatever now?”

“It's a good color for you,” Aya said. She hadn't looked up from her notepad since the conversation had started. 

“It's... kind of weird,” Sanae said. “You were the shrine maiden for as long as I've lived here. Now, having you suddenly on the other side...” She froze at that, eyes going wide. “W-wait, that doesn't mean we're enemies now, does it?!”

“I don't want to be _anybody's_ enemy. It sounds like too much work, if you ask me.” Reimu slumped against the table and yawned. The meal was still heavy in her stomach, and already, she could feel the first hints of hunger creeping back in. She was definitely going to have to ask Yukari about that. “But... yes. Um. I'm a youkai now.”

Even that simple admission felt like it should have been... more dramatic. Part of her already wished she could take it back. The others barely seemed to notice, though. Even the other patrons seemed to have not overheard it over the background chatter.

“Hmmm...” Aya finally stopped writing and glanced over her notes. “... what about your replacement, that new shrine maiden? Have you talked to her much?”

"Only once. She's not really interested in hearing anything I have to say."

"It seems like that girl doesn't want to listen to anybody," Aya said, and her tone quite naturally shifted from 'information gathering' to 'gossiping.' Reimu wasn't sure if she _had_ any other tones of voice. “I hear that the shop owners are already pretty upset with her for trying to chase the youkai out of town, but she isn't budging.”

“She's not,” Marisa said. Now that Aya had finished writing, she pulled away from the tengu and rested her elbows on the table. “I'm the one they asked to talk to her about it. She wasn't havin' it.”

“What even happened?” Reimu said, trying to sound less interested than she actually was. If she got Aya going, she might not get out of here before closing time.

“The main one I heard is that she trashed Misty bad enough that she had to close up her shop. Takin' a few days off to heal.”

“S-She got Mystia?!” Sanae leaned forward against the table, gaping in disbelief.

“Yeah.”

Sanae wilted. “Where am I supposed to get dinner on late-night youkai hunts now...”

“… Sanae, that ain't the issue.”

“The real issue, of course,” Aya said, raising her voice, “is that an upstanding and peaceful youkai has been attacked.” Reimu had never seen Aya speak in another youkai's defense. Maybe it was a bird pride thing. “And she didn't follow the spell card rules, even. That kind of thing doesn't look good to the rest of us. Not good at all.”

“Wait,” Reimu said. “... what do you mean about the rules?”

"Ahh, you know. Everybody says Mystia wasn't doing anything, and the new girl just attacked her without even declaring a spell card. Of course...” Aya glanced over to Reimu, and her growing grin screamed 'just wait until you hear _this_.' “There are rumors that she's exterminated youkai after beating them in a duel, but nobody knows for sure."

Reimu leaned back with a sigh. Breaking the spell card rules was... well. Her first instinct was to run off and do something about it, but enforcing the spell card rules was part of the shrine maiden's job. If she was breaking them, herself... 

And, she was increasingly aware, the three of them were looking at her like they expected her to do something about it. "... I don't see why it's any concern of mine. I'm not the shrine maiden anymore." Even now, that hurt to say.

"Hmm. I see, I see. I suppose that's true, isn't it?" Aya sounded disappointed. _Hoping to stir up a news-worthy fight?_ "Still, it makes you think, huh? Most of the youkai are pretty happy with the spell card system. If _she's_ not following the rules..."

"Then what?" Reimu asked, with a deliberate tone of disinterest.

"Youkai don't need to follow the rules either. How long before somebody decides to do something about her, do you think?"

Reimu froze and studied Aya's face. She'd said it with the same casual, gossiping tone as the rest of the conversation, but the threat didn't sound entirely implausible. Aya wasn't the sort to do something like that, but plenty of other youkai had hair-triggers when it came to their pride. It would only take one wounded ego.

Maybe not even that much, if the rumors got bad enough. Youkai were just as capable of forming angry mobs as humans were. Maybe even more so. Some of them treated violence like an entertaining pastime.

“I... should probably go talk to her today, huh?”

“Couldn't hurt, couldn't hurt,” Aya said, nodding, then looked down to her notebook again. “... so anyway, let's go back to the topic of your new boss...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Illustration commissioned from dlartistanon (dlartistanon.tumblr.com). It should be clickable for the larger version!


	11. Chapter 11

By the time the conversation finished, the thin late afternoon crowd had vanished, replaced by a dinner time rush. Reimu had to gently elbow a few standing patrons away from her seat before she even had room to stand up. “Well, this was pretty fun. ... since you can't come bother me at my house now, we should do things like this more often.”

“I want to see your new house sometime, though!” Sanae said. “It sounds cool.”

“I'll ask Yukari about it, I guess.”

“Yeah, it ain't the same if we can't swing by and steal all your booze,” Marisa said, walking around the table.

“I think I'm okay with that.” Reimu scooped her coin purse up from where she'd left it sitting on the table, then reached into one of the baggy sleeves of her outfit. Inside that small cover, she was able to open a tiny gap and tuck it away.

It was supposed to be a bit more subtle than opening a gap right in the middle of the shop. Marisa was still left staring at her afterward. “W-wait! You can make those things?!”

“... yeah, I can.”

“Holy crap.” She leaned in with a sly grin. “Think you can hang around for a bit? Think about this: We go to the moneylender, and I distract 'em, while you—“

“Not interested.”

“Ah, darn,” Marisa said, still grinning. As usual, her complete lack of disappointment at the rejection left Reimu uncertain whether or not it had been a joke. “Well, keep it in mind. Anyway, if you're going to visit the shrine, see if you can talk Shiko into hostin' a flower-viewing there this year, while you're at it. The trees only have a few weeks left on 'em, and it'd be a shame to waste it.”

“I'll do my best,” Reimu said. She looked out the window. She couldn't see the sky, but it was getting dark out. “... anyway, I should try to get to the shrine before it gets too late.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Marisa said, and gave her a slap on the back. “Good luck! If anybody can talk some sense into the new kid, it's gotta be you, right?”

* * *

_What am I going to do when I get there?_

Reimu had been worrying about it during the entire flight, and she didn't have a good answer. She'd never had much use for plans. Instinct alone could guide her through most situations. As the shrine maiden, she had never encountered a problem that she couldn't resolve by charging into battle. And now that she was here, standing in front of the Hakurei shrine, a plan didn't seem to be coming to her.

Nothing to do now but jump in and see what happened.

Reimu made her way up the steps and to the front of the shrine. Thanks to her new night vision, even in the low light, she could see that the place had changed a little since her last visit. The leaky spot in the roof had been patched up—Reimu had always been unable to work up the energy to do so when she could just throw a pot under it. The frayed rope for the donation box bell had been replaced. The front of the shrine looked like it had been cleaned, and she was sure that every bit would practically sparkle in the sunlight. It did look a bit less like a youkai shrine, she had to admit. She found the excessive cleanliness annoying, until she passed the donation box: Still empty. _And now you know why I never bothered with all of that._

Now that she was here anyway, though, she could use all of the blessings that she could get. She'd seen the motions of prayer hundreds of times before, but they had a surreal quality to them this time. The water was still warm from the daytime sun. As soon as she rang the bell, she could hear sounds coming from within the shrine. She dumped the contents of her coin purse into the box—they made a lonely rattling sound—bowed, clapped, and prayed.

Since the shrine's god hadn't even gone out of its way to acknowledge her leaving, she didn't feel hopeful about getting anything from it now. It felt necessary, though. As the shrine maiden, going out of her way to pay respect to the god had seemed redundant. Now, it was one small way for her to feel some residual connection to the shrine.

Her head was still bowed when she heard the door slide open. Shiko's voice followed. "What are you doing?"

"I'm praying," Reimu said. She pointedly stuck at it for another few seconds before opening her eyes and looked up.

Shiko was standing in the doorway, gripping the door with a cloth wrapped around one hand. It was easy to see why. Her hands and arms were smeared with ink. There was even a little on her face... and smudged into the white of her shrine maiden uniform. "Making ofuda?" Reimu asked.

Shiko ignored the question. Without taking her eyes off of Reimu, she released the door and started wiping her hands clean with the cloth. "This isn't a shrine for youkai. You should leave."

"You don't really have a lot of worshipers for me to scare off right now," Reimu said, gesturing at the empty pathway behind herself. Now that she no longer depended on donations for her income, she could take a perverse satisfaction in it. "I need to talk to you."

“I'm not interested.”

Shiko started sliding the door closed, and Reimu grabbed it to stop her. The new shrine maiden glared at her. “I was the shrine maiden for years,” Reimu said. “No matter what I am now, I still know how to do the job.”

“I have it under control,” Shiko said. She gave the door another tug.

“No, you don't. You're going to get yourself killed!”

Reimu had blurted it out without thinking, but it had the intended effect. Shiko froze, with the door still cracked open half a meter. “... what do you mean?”

Since she had the initiative anyway, Reimu decided to seize it. While Shiko was distracted, she pushed the door a few more centimeters before Shiko stopped her. She left her hand on the frame. “Are you going to listen now?”

“How am I... going to die?” On the surface, Shiko sounded calm, but she was gripping the door tightly enough that her knuckles were white.

“Are you going to listen to me?”

The girl glared at Reimu through the doorway, but her interest was obviously piqued. “... hold on,” she said, and stepped away. When she returned, a few seconds later, there was a stack of ofuda in her hand. She held them up and gave them a demonstrative waggle. “You have two minutes.”

_Is this really necessary?_ Reimu wanted to say at the implied threat, but she didn't want to waste her time. She could see that the ofuda were the heavier variety that she had used for spell card duels. Not lethal, but they were enough to make most youkai regret picking a fight well into the next morning. She was sure that plenty of those same youkai would get a kick out of her being threatened with them right now. She turned her thoughts back to the matter at hand. "... I hear that you've been attacking peaceful youkai. Why?"

"I don't know, who are you talking about?"

"Mystia Lorelei," Reimu said. "The night sparrow who runs a lamprey stand."

"I caught her trying to blind humans! That's not peaceful."

"It doesn't deserve being nearly exterminated, either!" The argument didn't come naturally to her. She'd never been the one defending a youkai's actions before. Mystia was an easier one to defend, at least. She rarely caused any lasting harm apart from the three hundred yen cost of her lamprey special. Actual violence was bad for business.

"What should I have done, then? Used your play-fighting rules?"

An annoyed blush rose to Reimu's cheeks. _Play-fighting_. A few youkai had made similarly dismissive comments about the spell card system at first. "Spell cards are the only way to settle things peacefully.”

“She would have been right back in the same place the next day!”

“Then don't worry about Mystia,” Reimu said with a sigh. “If you try to attack every youkai that causes trouble, anywhere, you're just going to make them angry.”

Shiko had been raising her voice throughout the conversation, but now let out a low sigh and quieted down again. “So is that it, then? You think they're going to get angry enough to try killing me?”

“I don't know anything for sure,” Reimu admitted. She was a bit calmer now that Shiko wasn't shouting, herself. The girl was still holding up the stack of ofuda. Seeing her shaking them as she talked made for a nerve-wracking conversation. Reimu had seen them in action far, far too often to want to be on the receiving end. “But it could happen. Youkai are a bunch of headstrong brats, but... they stick together, when it comes to youkai exterminators. Word has gotten around about you pretty fast. If you attack the wrong target, somebody might try it.”

Shiko went silent as she considered that. “Well, um. Now that I know, I can stay on the lookout.”

“... w-wait, so you're not going to...?”

“To back down? Nope. I mean... I'm a bit of a scaredy-cat, actually. I cried on my first youkai hunt,” Shiko admitted with a grim chuckle. “But I already promised myself, I'm going to do whatever I can to keep people safe. If that means that some youkai tries to eat me... I can seal the shrine so that no youkai can enter. I'll be extra careful when I'm hunting. I guess we'll see who wins, won't we?”

“... you really are stubborn, aren't you?”

“You're not the first person to tell me that,” Shiko said. “... thanks for the warning, but your two minutes are up.”

The door started sliding closed again. “You idiot! Don't you care if you die?!” Reimu lunged forward into the doorway and stopped the door with her foot. This time, she put the whole force of her body into slamming the door open.

Shiko obviously hadn't expected it. The girl took a stumbling step backward and held the ofuda up in front of herself, like the sight alone would ward Reimu off. Her eyes were wide in shock. The two were left staring at each other, with barely half a meter of space between them.

Reimu could picture how she must look now. Lunging through the doorway, with a sharp-toothed grin and unnatural eyes... so much for convincing the girl she was an ally. She could hardly look more like a youkai if she tried.

But there was something far more concerning here. She once again caught that food-like scent that had permeated the village. Her stomach growled in response, already feeling achingly empty even after the recent meal. Only now, with nothing else around and the source isolated, did she realize what it was.

The scent she'd been smelling throughout the village wasn't food. It was humans.

They smelled _delicious_.

Now that she'd put the two together, something in her brain just seemed to click. The spot where Shiko's delicate neck rose up from the hem of shrine maiden uniform looked invitingly vulnerable, and Reimu found her mouth watering. Her stomach knotted up, torn between disgusted nausea and hunger. The force drained from her muscles, and she leaned back out the door. 

For just a few seconds, the two stared at each other across the short space between them, both looking overwhelmed and uncertain. Then, Shiko raised an ofuda in a shaking hand. “I think you should go.”

Reimu was too overwhelmed to argue. With a dim nod, she released the doorway and stepped backward. Shiko moved forward quickly and shoved the door closed. The familiar click of the lock latching came a second later.

By the time Reimu got back to the homestead, her stomach was already growling again. She skipped the evening meal anyway.


	12. Chapter 12

In the three days since her trip into the village—and the confrontation with Shiko—Reimu's life had, somehow, continued. She woke up. She bathed. She alternated between skipping meals, nauseous from the memory of wanting to bite into Shiko's neck, and eating voraciously. Whether or not she ate, she was filled by a constant hunger that felt like it was consuming her from within.

Now, she had a pretty good idea of what she needed to eat, and she wasn't about to allow that to happen. So, she distracted herself. She spent an entire night inspecting the barrier from the air. She helped Ran sew a new outfit for Chen. She sat in the lawn and stargazed with Yukari.

She did anything, whatever she could, to avoid humans and ignore her hunger.

Today, it was reading. She was laying in the grass, struggling her way through a random borrowed novel from Ran's collection, when Yukari's voice buzzed at the edge of her perception. _”Reimu, you have mail.”_

_”Coming...”_

Reimu closed the book and dropped it back onto her bed through a gap. At this point, it was almost a subconscious action. That part of being a youkai, at least, had come naturally to her. She stood up, and her vision briefly dimmed at the edges.

The hunger was starting to take its toll. Her head felt fuzzy, and she had a bad habit of losing her train of thought. She got tired easily, and found herself shaking after any meaningful exercise. Even now, just walking across the lawn, she caught her attention drifting away and leaving her body running on autopilot. A lifetime of late night battles across Gensokyo had given her plenty of experience at working past her fatigue, but... she wasn't sure how much longer she could keep this up.

“Why would somebody send _me_ mail?” she said, as she rounded the corner of the house.

Yukari was sitting on the front step, across from her usual meeting spot with the crows. Judging by the few who were still lounging in the trees, they'd just finished today's session. “I don't know,” Yukari said. With a flick of her wrist, she sent an envelope sailing through the air. Reimu fumblingly caught it. “Why don't you find out?”

Reimu turned the envelope over in her hands as she sat down. It was thick, heavy paper. The only marking on it was a message on the front: “DELIVERY TO REIMU C/O YAKUMO HOUSEHOLD,” stamped in blocky red hiragana.

She'd never gotten mail before. In the village, where everything was within walking distance, it was only used by the busier shop owners. As the shrine maiden, she'd never had much need for it. Ripping the flap open gave her an illicit little thrill. She reached inside, pulled the letter out, and unfolded it.

The writing was in Court Tengu, with a hiragana and kanji transliteration below. _In the interest of extending Lord Tenma's respectful greetings to the newest servant of the most esteemed youkai sage Yakumo Yukari, and..._ It just went on and on and on, filling an entire page with tiny ornate characters. Even the bits of Reimu's mind that could now deal with advanced mathematics and sorcery were at a loss for the ornate speech. “Lord Tenma... wants me to visit... today... so he can... pay his respects? I don't understand.”

“Hmm,” Yukari said. Bent over, she read the letter along with Reimu. “That's because it's a deliberate insult.”

“Huh? There are four 'humbly beseech'es and six 'respectfully's in here.”

“When dealing with tengu bureaucracy, you need to learn to look at what people say, not the words that they use. Ignore the flowery language, for starters. Now then...” Yukari tapped a spot on the paper. “He says that he would like to see you at his court, and today. If he were speaking to somebody he considers an equal, he'd let you choose the date. The short notice is only a slap to the face on top of it. Two weeks is considered normal for something like this. Moving on... he says that he'd like you to visit to 'strengthen the bonds between...' Ah, this sentence goes on for a while, doesn't it? Most of this is empty words. Really, even by tengu standards, this is impressive.”

“Oh.” Reimu wasn't sure how to take the news that she'd been subtly insulted by somebody she hadn't even met. “... so what does he actually want?”

“Probably to get a good look at you for himself, and reassure his courtiers that you aren't a threat to the balance of Gensokyo. And, of course, to get some satisfaction out of proving that he can give orders to one of my servants.”

“So I shouldn't go, right?”

“Hmm?” Yukari smiled cryptically and tapped her chin with her fan. It had a habit of appearing in her hands without warning. “Well, what would happen if you didn't go?”

“I... don't know. It would show that he can't boss me around, right?”

“Well, yes, but this letter doesn't give you an order. In fact, he even says please. You're giving it a very unkind reading, don't you think?”

“But you just said...!”

Yukari's smile only grew more challenging. “Oh, of course it's an insult. That's only when you are reading below the surface, though. Think of what it would look like to outsiders: The mighty lord of the tengu invites you to tea, and you turn him down? Even worse, since the appointment is this afternoon, there's no way you could send a polite rejection in time. He invites you for tea and you simply don't show up.” She hid her face behind her fan and adopted a falsetto. “'Did you hear about Yakumo's new shikigami? She stood up Lord Tenma! So uncouth! Oh, but maybe the poor thing was just _frightened_.'”

Yukari ended with an exaggerated titter. The sound set Reimu's teeth on edge. “I get it, I get it,” she said, and reached over to shove the fan aside. “So I _should_ go, then.”

"Normally, I would encourage you to, yes. There are other things to consider, though." Yukari folded her fan closed and set it across her lap. Her expression grew more serious. Reimu knew that she was in trouble the moment that she saw it. "You aren't feeling well, are you?"

Of course Yukari would be the first one to notice. “I'm fine,” she said. “Just... tired.”

“You're more than just 'tired.' I can feel your emotions, remember? You're hungry.”

“... yeah, I am,” Reimu admitted. “I'll be okay, though. I just need to eat a bit more.”

Yukari did not look convinced. "Reimu," She said, in a softer tone. "You feel like you're halfway starved to death. If there's something wrong, you can tell me."

Reimu glared down at her lap. The idea of telling Yukari about her impulses at the shrine... it was unbearable. Thinking them that was one thing, but saying them out loud was another entirely. She was going to need to tell somebody eventually, but not now. She needed to make some kind of peace with it first. "... maybe later. I'll be fine,” she assured Yukari, with a very deliberate smile. “I'm not going to let some youkai tell everybody that I was too scared to talk to him."

Yukari held her gaze, challenging her to back down. “In your condition, I think that you should stay home and rest. You're not in any shape to travel, and you don't know what will be expected of you in Tenma's court. But... I'm not going to order you to stay home, either. If you go, I'll come with you.”

“Good,” Reimu said, and pushed herself to standing. Even that left her momentarily lightheaded. She did her best to ignore it. “I'll start getting ready, then.”

* * *

The instructions from Tenma had been to arrive at one of the lowest tengu observation posts, where somebody would arrive to escort them to the top of the mountain. Reimu wasn't sure if this was another of those thinly-veiled insults or not. It _did_ seem a bit rude to just step out of a gap into the middle of somebody's house (not that it had ever stopped Yukari), but walking halfway up the mountain was no short trip.

At least the view was nice. The mountainside was covered in fresh green leaves and spring flowers. The spot that they'd been directed to was a rope bridge that stretched in front of a waterfall. The river below left a narrow treeless corridor to the east, giving it a clear line of sight toward most of Gensokyo. On a clear day, it was probably possible to spot intruders before they'd even passed the foothills.

The location was also burnt into her memories as the site of one of her first battles with a tengu. So she wasn't surprised when she heard a familiar voice from behind her. "Hey, Reimu! Did you get that new shrine maiden sorted out?”

“... not really,” Reimu said, and turned around. Already, Aya's hands were busy with her camera. “She doesn't really want to listen to me.”

“Ah, that's a shame, that's a shame...” Aya plowed right ahead. “So, before we get going, do you have any comments on—“

Behind Aya, Momiji cleared her throat reproachfully. "Lord Tenma would like to extend his greetings."

"...ah.” Aya had already been lifting her camera, but now froze, looking conflicted. “Yeah, that too, that too. We weren't informed that you'd have a guest, but I'm sure it won't be a problem."

"That's very gracious of you. I apologize for imposing," Yukari said, so diplomatically that Reimu could almost imagine that she hadn't been saying that this was an insult mere hours earlier.

As Aya reluctantly tucked her camera away, Momiji stepped past her and gestured toward the path behind her. “This way, please.”

* * *

Reimu spoke very little for the rest of the trip up the mountain. Yukari had been right to be worried about her: before long, her hunger was making it difficult enough to just focus on the path ahead and keep walking. Her legs felt heavy and her vision swam. It didn't help that she would have usually been in bed hours earlier. Just as she was starting to think that she might need to say something, the first hints of the tengu village were appearing around them.

Reimu had never visited the tengu village that often. As much as they liked gossip and parties, the tengu preferred to keep other races out of their territory unless they had a good reason to be there. Still, she'd been there often enough to not be totally surprised by their surroundings. It was nothing like she would have expected from a youkai settlement. The streets were wide and impeccably clean. The trees that towered over the village were trimmed so perfectly that they looked like they were out of a storybook. They formed a near-solid canopy overhead, all to help shield the village from the sight of the humans below. Even the layout—scattered wolf tengu family houses around the perimeter, with the buildings toward the center more tightly-packed and varying more in size—felt like the product of careful planning.

Soon, the four had reached the largest building in the city, the headquarters of the tengu bureaucracy. It was a wooden lodge, a domelike building of rough hewn wood, with red lacquered trim and a pillar of smoke coming from a squat chimney. It struck Reimu as both rustic and intimidating at the same time. Standing outside were two wolf tengu guards with naginata, who waved the group through at a gesture from Aya.

_”Try to relax,”_ Yukari mentally commented. _”The letter was flowery bullshit, but Tenma is a straightforward man. Just think of him as an oni and you'll be fine.”_

_”... so don't bother lying, and be careful with any drinks he offers.”_

_”More or less. He may be trying to make me lose face today, but that's just politics. He won't do anything to hurt you, especially not with me here.”_

The corridors of the building soon opened into a much larger room, big enough to fit most of the Hakurei shrine inside of it. Apart from the size, it was tastefully subdued compared to most other youkai abodes that Reimu had seen. Tenma's seat was in front of a window that looked out over a waterfall, framing him with rushing water. A square fire pit sat in the center of the room, currently crackling and keeping the place as hot as a sauna. Two small braziers flanked the throne. Otherwise, the room was nearly empty, apart from the line of wolf tengu guards discreetly standing along the back wall.

Although Tenma was plenty intimidating enough to make the room feel full anyway. He looked almost human, but just felt... larger, in every way. His hair was a wild black mess, only trimmed just short enough to keep it from hanging past his shoulders, and his face was hidden behind a red tengu mask... seeing them at festivals in the village, Reimu had always thought that the long noses had made them look goofy. The real article, rather less so. It reduced his expression to a constant baleful glare. Between the mask and his red-and-white robe, very little of him was actually visible. Only the clawed hands resting on the arms of his throne hinted that there was an actual person under there.

“Lord Tenma,” Aya said, in a tone that was far, far more serious than anything that Reimu had ever heard from her before. “As requested, I've brought—“

“The former shrine maiden, yes.” Somehow, Tenma's voice managed to be both scratchy and boomingly deep. “And Miss Yakumo. Welcome. Please, have a seat.”

Aya and Momiji lingered by the door, while Reimu considered her options. Without any cushions in the room, the only sensible place to sit was kneeling on the floor in front of the throne. She wasn't sure if this was another veiled insult or not, but at this point, she couldn't care. The walk up the mountain had left her exhausted, and she felt like she might not make it another step. As soon as she was close enough, she allowed herself to kneel, and hoped that she had managed to make it not look _completely_ inelegant. “Thank you, Lord Tenma.”

“I apologize for only meeting you now. I have heard your name in plenty of reports, I assure you. Usually followed by obscenities.” Tenma chuckled. “You were the first human in generations to fight her way past the tengu patrols. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Reimu looked up. Through the mask's eye holes, she could see Tenma's eyes, yellow and narrow-slitted. She held his gaze for a few seconds as she considered her response. _Treat him like an oni, right..._ “I wouldn't have needed to do it if they would have left me alone in the first place. Next time, try telling them to stay out of my way.”

Even by her usual standards of dealing with unfamiliar youkai, it was a bit blunt. For a second, she wondered if she might have gone too far. Then, Tenma threw his head back and burst into raucous guffaws of laughter. The sound was enough to make the entire room reverberate. “Hah! I just might. I think that half of them are more afraid of you than they are of me.” The exchange seemed to have dispelled some of the tension in the room. With a gesture of one massive hand, he dismissed the the tengu at the back of the room. They hurried out the door, leaving only Aya behind. “I have questions for you, but I've made you walk so far already. Please, relax. Have a drink with me, and we will get to know each other before we discuss business.” 

Reimu really didn't need to add alcohol on top of her current condition... but she had no idea how to turn down the offer in these circumstances without being rude. For once, she knew how Sanae had felt at parties at the shrine. “I would be honored,” she said.

Already, as a pair of servants carried in an overladen tray of jugs and bottles, she was wondering if she'd gotten herself in over her head.


	13. Chapter 13

With a combination of carefully-timed sips and polite refusals, Reimu was able to keep herself almost sober throughout the long session with Lord Tenma. Tengu liquor was just as delicious as it was strong. She wished that she could afford to unwind and drink freely. The taste needled at her hunger, making her stomach growl throughout the morning's proceedings.

Once he'd emptied his dish a few times, Tenma began asking questions. “Please, tell me about life as a shrine maiden.” “Tell me, how did such a small thing defeat the Moriya goddess?” “The spell card system, how did you come up with the idea? I've crafted several of my own.” He was an active participant in the conversation, chortling with delight at even the smallest joke and always urging her to brag about her exploits.

And Reimu had no idea what he was getting out of it. There wasn't any pattern to the questions to hint that he was anything but curious. Between his jovial demeanor and the alcohol, she soon found herself talking freely. For her own part, Yukari stayed mostly silent, only speaking up to slip the occasional acerbic comment into one of Reimu's anecdotes. By the time the conversation was winding down, Reimu was actually sort of enjoying herself. She'd almost forgotten that it was anything but a social gathering.

At the tail end of chuckling at her recollection of the Spring Snow Incident, Tenma sat his drink aside and seemed to grow more serious. “Now, Miss Reimu, I'm sure that this is longer than you ever planned to spend drinking with a nosy old man like myself,” he said. “But I'm sure you would not mind if I requested one small favor before you leave?”

Reimu sat her own drink aside and tried to steer her tipsy mind back toward business. “Well, that depends on the favor, doesn't it?”

“Hah! So it does. You see, I've heard many stories about how fearsome you are in battle, but I've never gotten to see it with my own eyes. If it pleases you,” he said, and gestured across the room to where Aya waited by the door. “I would like to see you have a friendly duel with my Shameimaru. With spell cards, of course. There is no need for bloodshed among friends.”

 _”This is probably why he asked you here,”_ Yukari said, mentally speaking to Reimu even as she sipped her liquor with a neutral expression. _”A demonstration of your powers, to reassure him that you don't still have the Hakurei blessings. If you don't feel well enough for it, I can step in and—“_

 _”No,”_ Reimu cut her off. _”I've come too far to back down.”_

_”Reimu, this isn't a...”_

But Reimu was already standing up. “I accept. This is pretty small for a duel, though. Should we head outside?”

* * *

By the time that Reimu and Aya were squared off against each other in the street, half of the settlement had somehow gotten news of the fight. An uneven circle of spectators had already staked out the boundary of the battlefield. As Yukari and Tenma took up positions on opposite sides, Aya made her way to Reimu's side. “Hey, hey. Sorry about this. Boss's idea, have to go along with it, you know? Not much say in the matter.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I'm under instructions to not hold back, so... give me your best shot, okay?”

“I'll try not to beat you too hard,” Reimu said, probably sounding less confident than she intended. She was already second-guessing herself. The walk had left her lightheaded, and the alcohol wasn't helping matters.

“Heh, we'll see about that. Good luck!” After giving her a slap on the back, Aya hurried back to her end of the clearing.

A hush fell over the crowd. Reimu took a deep breath and stretched in place to work some blood back into her muscles. Tenma stepped forward into the circle. “Miss Yakumo. Since you are the guests here, I will allow you to set the guidelines.”

_”Reimu, you're the one stuck in the middle of this foolishness. Do you have any preference?”_

_”Let's just get it over with.”_

_”That's probably for the best.”_ Yukari stepped forward, herself. “Your generosity is appreciated as always, Lord Tenma,” she said, somehow managing to say it without a trace of sarcasm. “Since this is a friendly match, I propose non-incident close quarters rules. No flight beyond five meters, and whoever has the least impacts at the end of two cards apiece wins. With verbal naming, since Reimu regretfully hasn't had enough time to draw up formal cards yet.”

Two cards wasn't much of a duel at all. There were fairies with more than that; for most youkai, anything less than four or five was a warmup. It wouldn't give the crowd much of a show, but it was the least that they were likely to get away with. Reimu thought that she might just be able to handle it. On the other hand... that meant lasting through four spell cards, and dodging through two of them. That was a good few minutes of vigorous exercise.

“The lady's choice,” Tenma said with a nod, and gestured toward the circle. “Miss Reimu, I will give you first honors. When you are ready, of course.”

Reimu nodded in response. Unable to resist, she ran a quick series of mental divinations. _I have a 12% chance of winning this, and a 23% chance of not making it to the end of the match,_ she concluded after a few milliseconds. Well. She wasn't sure if knowing that helped or not. It wasn't like it changed much about her potential actions.

Drifting upward until she was a meter above the ground, she kept her eyes on Aya and weighed her options. With only two weeks to adjust to her new powers, she hadn't had much opportunity for constructing spell cards. The ones she did have were mostly flawed experiments, attempts to tease out the combat applications of her new abilities. Even after days of sparring with Yukari, her hands felt empty without a gohei or ofuda. But, she wasn't about to concede defeat that easily. She might not have been the shrine maiden anymore, but it was still a point of pride that she had a nearly flawless dueling record. “Ready, Aya?”

“Of course!”

Once she'd made up her mind, Reimu took a deep breath to steady herself before announcing her card. “Tenfold Spirit-Shredding Boundary!” She gestured forward, and a purple-white beam of energy blasted from her hand. It crossed the space in the blink of an eye. Grinning, Aya sidestepped it. “Ahh, too slow, too slow!” she shouted. A wave of chuckles went up through the crowd.

Barely a meter behind Aya, a gap had opened in front of the laser. Now, another gap opened to her side, and the beam continued outward. Not expecting the attack, Aya barely managed to duck around it, only for another bounce to send the beam within a centimeter of her ear. Rebound after rebound, the air filled with dozens of gaps, each with a segment of the laser extending between them. They formed an irregular, three-dimensional grid around Aya, tangling her up in a cage of energy and restricting her movements. Her free space grew smaller and smaller... until the laser looped back around to the first gap, stabilizing Aya's prison. With a thrust from her other hand, Reimu started the card's final stage. The eyes within the gaps glowed and spat out waves of crimson bullets. Aya was enveloped in a firestorm from every direction.

She'd had similar spell cards as a shrine maiden, but the experience of using it was completely different. Before, she would have simply thrown out enough ofuda that she didn't care if most of them impacted harmlessly against trees and the ground. Here, the entire thing was a concerted, mathematical dance. Her shikigami programming hummed away in the back of her mind, doing an inhuman number of calculations to keep it going. In the blink of an eye, she processed hundreds of vector transformations, allowing herself to route the laser through dozens of gaps. To prevent it from being too predictable, she adjusted everything with several pseudorandomly-determined elements. A month ago, she hadn't even known what half of those words _meant_. Now, it didn't even require her full attention. The hard part was applying it right. The raw math was child's play.

“A-ah, that's tricky, Reimu!” Aya shouted across the clearing. In the brief respite between when the laser stopped progressing and when the first bullets reached her, she blasted out a quick counterattack. As hurried as she was, it was little more than a wave of overlapping projectiles. Reimu held her ground until the last moment before darting through an opening.

She was too focused on her own defense to pay attention to Aya. When she heard a loud murmur run through the crowd, she wasn't even sure what had happened until Yukari relayed, _”That's three to zero, your favor. You're doing well.”_

As the wave of bullets passed her, Reimu got her first look at Aya. True to her predictions, once she was robbed of her famous speed, Aya was a lot easier to hit. With barely a meter to move in any direction, she was having to twist her body around to avoid the bullets. It left her too busy to attempt another counterattack.

Reimu couldn't keep it up forever, though. After a few rounds of this—constraining Aya in a new cage, bombarding her in bullets, and then dodging the counterattack—even that exertion was starting to take its toll. On the fourth repetition of the attack, her attention faltered for just a moment, but it was enough. The gaps flickered, and with that momentary lapse, Aya's imprisonment was broken. She darted aside, and before the last of the bullets clattered to the cobblestones, Reimu limply waved a hand to signal the end of the card.

In the brief respite afterward, she found that her hands were trembling. Her vision had been unfocused, barely seeming to register with her conscious mind. She could remember that Yukari had updated her on the score recently, but the details hadn't quite made it to her memory. _Just three more cards to go..._

“Hey, not bad, Reimu, not bad!” Aya said, as she settled to the ground. The crowd was silent enough that, even at this distance, Reimu could hear the _click_ of her geta impacting the stone. “But now it's my turn.” She pulled her hauchiwa from her side and dramatically pointed it at Reimu. “Alright, I've been wanting to try this one on you anyway. Wind God's Summer Typhoon!”

It wasn't a name that she'd heard before, but Reimu supposed that it would be too much to hope for a familiar card. Aya whirled around, and slashed her fan forward with the force of her entire body. A tidal wave of green-white bullets erupted outward in a ballistic arc. When they fell to the ground, they bounced off, tumbling along and accelerating irregularly, as if they were being blown along by gusts of wind.

Reimu gritted her teeth as she watched the wall of spinning bullets close in on her. Her programming tracked them, filling the back of her head with thousands of trajectory calculations... and with each new gust, they all changed, completely throwing off her projections. 

So, plan B: With a quick gesture, Reimu opened a gap beneath herself. Gravity did the rest, and she plummeted into darkness.

Even before becoming a shikigami, Reimu had traveled through gaps on a few occasions. Now, though, it was even stranger than it had been before. Now, she _knew_ that the void around her was no place for a human. It was undifferentiated chaos, the backstage to the universe. It lacked all of the lines between _here_ and _there_ and _then_ and _now_ that gave structure to existence. She felt that, with one wrong step, she might emerge a thousand years in the past or halfway across the world. Maybe even somewhere weirder. It raised a lot of questions, but even though she felt much smarter than she'd ever been, she wasn't sure if she was prepared to discuss the subject with Yukari yet. Maybe in a few decades.

Another gap opened between her feet, and Reimu fell back into the light and warmth of the spring afternoon. She landed harder than she had been anticipating and staggered under the impact, barely staying upright. In front of her, she could see the last of the bullets clattering past the spot she'd just vacated.

An annoyed murmur ran through the audience. “Hey, hey, hold still!” Aya said, and lashed her fan out for another wave of attacks. Reimu knew that she probably couldn't get away with using another gap. It wasn't banned, but if she spent the entire fight running away, it wouldn't take long for her weakness to become obvious. She was just going to have to rely on raw dodging ability. The bullets closed in on her, and every muscle worked in perfect harmony to sidestep a cluster of them. It was like the middleman had been cut out of her reflexes, giving her direct, moment-to-moment control over her muscles. On instinct alone, she ducked and weaved through dozens of projectiles. There was no unnecessary movement, barely any conscious thought.

This, too, was shikigami programming, and she allowed it to subsume her consciousness. It was her only hope, really. By the time the last of the bullets tumbled past her, her pulse was hammering in her ears, and her vision was dark near the edges. Her limbs trembled, and only adrenaline was keeping her upright.

And already, another wave of bullets was bouncing toward her. She dimly considered surrendering, but before her muddled thoughts could even line up for long enough to give it serious thought, the attack was upon her. Every bit of evasive skill that she had screamed for her to move, but her body was no longer quite up to the task. One bullet clipped her shoulder, and she stumbled. She'd already been lightheaded, and now she was dizzy; only some normally-quiet bit of programming managed to keep her upright by gauging her position against the ground. The programming was the only thing keeping her together now, forcing exhausted muscles to keep working past their limits... but that could only take her so far. Jumping around a bullet, Reimu found that she simply had no strength left in her. When she landed, her leg folded beneath her, and she slumped to the ground. Half a dozen other bullets smacked into her, each one with a spike of dull pain, but it was a distant thing. Her consciousness felt disconnected from her body. It was like nothing so much as that night in the bamboo forest, dying in Yukari's arms.

Reimu struggled to push herself away from the ground, but there was no strength in her trembling arms. The crowd was in an uproar now, but she couldn't understand any of it. Reimu's vision blurred, and as she collapsed against the cobblestones, grew dark.


	14. Chapter 14

“Reimu. Reimu, please wake up.”

Something shook Reimu's shoulder and nudged her back to awareness. This was immediately followed by a second sensation: dull pain, like a barely-healed wound, burned in her stomach. Her first thought was, ' _Did I get hurt again?_ ', and then she remembered that it was only hunger. She'd felt like this for days. The third sensation, the smell of some kind of meat, only made the pain worse, but it coaxed her into admitting that she was awake.

“Ngh...” With a soft grunt, she rolled over. Even that was a struggle. Opening her eyes, she found Yukari sitting at the side of her bed, with a steaming bowl in her lap. “What happened...?” she mumbled. Her limbs were shaking, but she forced them to continue moving until she was propped back against the headboard.

“You collapsed. Here.” Yukari dipped a spoon into the bowl, then offered it over. This close, Reimu could identify the smell as broth. The idea of being spoon-fed, especially by Yukari, was humiliating. Grudgingly, she leaned forward and slurped the broth up. Yukari pulled the spoon back, then dipped it in the bowl again. “How do you feel?”

“... um.” Reimu raised her hand and clenched her fingers a few times, trying to work a little strength into them. They still felt weak, regardless. “Not good. I don't know if I can even stand. … I lost the fight, didn't I?”

“You did. Politically, we'll call it a draw. Tenma showed that he can exert pressure on you, but he came off looking like he'd pressured a sick girl into fighting. You proved that you're not the threat that everybody feared, and I look like I can't take care of the members of my household. We all came away looking like fools.”

“... sorry.”

“Don't be. I doubt you had planned to black out in the middle of a fight.” Yukari offered over another spoonful of broth. After Reimu had swallowed it, she continued, “Although in the future, I'd generally prefer it if you would discuss this sort of thing with me _before_ you're halfway dead.”

“Sorry. I... wasn't comfortable talking about it.”

“Reimu, your problems are my problems now.” Yukari reached over to brush some hair out of Reimu's face. Reimu belatedly realized that she was still dirty. Her hair felt matted with dried sweat, and there was a layer of grime on her skin. “I'm not going to judge you. If this partnership is going to work, I need you to trust me. You don't need to deal with everything alone anymore.” Reimu remained silent, and Yukari fed her another spoonful of broth. “I know that your appetite has been unsteady. You don't hide it very well. Can you tell me what's wrong?” Another spoonful.

The broth took the edge off of the pain in Reimu's stomach, but she knew that it would be back soon enough. She kept her eyes lowered. She knew what she needed to say. Knowing Yukari, she'd probably figured it out days ago. Putting the words together was still difficult. “I think I'm... supposed to eat people.”

“Ah. What makes you say that?”

“During my trip to the human village. I, um... I could _smell_ them. Then I went to the shrine and I.” Reimu stopped, and considered whether she really wanted to continue that. “... thought about ripping out Shiko's throat. With my teeth.”

“Please do not eat the Hakurei shrine maiden,” Yukari said, deadpan. “It's considered a major faux pas.”

“I'll keep it in mind,” Reimu said, too tired for her usual show of exasperation.

“Good. But I'm not surprised. I've suspected it ever since your teeth became sharper.” Yukari didn't seem uncomfortable with the idea in the least, but offered a sympathetic smile along with another spoonful of broth. “Youkai can only get sustenance from so many sources, after all.”

Reimu self-consciously ran her tongue across one of her newly-pointed canines. She could feel heat rising into her cheeks. Even now, Yukari could be so calm, even when she'd just admitted that she wanted to eat humans. She wanted to grab her and shake her, see if she could get that smug expression off of her face. Her thoughts came to a faltering stop, though, as she realized: Yukari had already figured it out. That meant... With bile rising in her throat, Reimu recoiled from the spoon. “T-this isn't...?!”

“It's chicken broth,” Yukari reassured her. Reimu studied her face for a moment before she thought to peek at her emotions directly. Neither one showed any sign that she was lying. Instead, Reimu just found her emotions tinged with concern, affection, and the slightest bit of annoyance. Reluctantly, she accepted the spoonful of soup. Her stomach took a bit longer to settle, and it was several seconds before she was convinced that it was going to stay down. Yukari seemed to sense that she'd lost her appetite for the moment, and dropped the spoon into the bowl.

Reimu's only immediate response was an annoyed grunt, but without much force behind it. “So how do we fix it?”

“You assume that we can.”

“... what do you mean?”

“You're a youkai now. Some things come with the territory.”

Reimu could swear that she felt her heart stop in her chest. “I-I'm not going to _eat_ people!”

“Not even if you don't have a choice?”

“No!”

“I need to eat humans to survive. Do you consider me evil?” Reimu opened her mouth to answer, and found herself without words. Yukari continued. “As does Chen. Kappa have to eat their shirikodama. Tsuchigumo, kasha, vampires... you've always known plenty of youkai who eat humans. How is it different now?”

Reimu scowled and shrunk down under her covers. She didn't have a good answer. Being friends with youkai meant learning to ignore it. To not notice the red tinge to Remilia's tea. To overlook the disturbances in the barrier when groups of youkai crossed into the outside world. Over the years, she'd gotten pretty good at it. Nothing positive could have come out of thinking too hard about the subject.

And nothing positive could come out of it now, either. “We're not talking about this.”

“Hmm.” Yukari stayed sitting, and Reimu feared that she might be planning to press the issue. “... very well,” she conceded after a short time. “Get some rest. I'll be back in the evening.”

* * *

The day was a blur of nothingness. Within an hour of the visit from Yukari, Reimu's hunger was back at full force. It felt like a spear driven through her stomach. She curled up in a ball, with her knees clutched to her chest, to try relieving the ache. It didn't do her any good. The one time she tried to leave the room, her legs nearly collapsed under her, and she hurried back into bed.

There was nothing left to do but think, and just like before, her thoughts were unfocused and meandering. She drifted fitfully between consciousness and short bursts of sleep, and she could barely tell the difference between the two.

Throughout it all, the same feeling of disgust and dread hovered over her. At times, she daydreamed about sticking to her resolution forever. Maybe she'd just lay here, starving the youkai portion out of her soul until she was a normal human again. She found the idea strangely joyless. Other times, she caught herself fantasizing about eating her fill. Sometimes, she was sitting at a buffet, with a heaping plate of outside world sweets and hearty soup. Other times, that tempting, delicious smell that had hung around Shiko. Her teeth sunk into the girl's neck with little more resistance than a rich cake. A warm, sweet taste filled her mouth...

When she realized just what she was imagining, her stomach seized up in nausea again. Her fantasies came to an abrupt end, but the imagined taste of human flesh lingered.

As before, Reimu could hear life continue throughout the rest of the house. It made her feel... small. Like a child throwing a temper tantrum, while everybody else patiently waited for her to give in to reason. It just drove her to be even more contrary. When she heard footsteps enter the room, she stayed still and pretended to sleep. If Yukari wanted to try convincing her to eat again, she could wait.

The voice that came wasn't Yukari's, though. It was Chen, speaking in a hushed tone. “Hey, Reimu. Reimu! Hey, wake up.”

Reimu could see that she wasn't going to get anywhere by ignoring her. She rolled over enough to tilt her head toward Chen, and allowed her eyes to drift open. “What is it...?”

“Oh!” Chen looked down, fidgeting with something behind her back. “Are ya sick?”

“... more or less.”

Chen nodded, and glanced hesitantly toward the door. “Lady Ran said I'm not supposed to bother you, but...” From behind her back, she pulled a colorful box and a stack of blank paper, and thrust them in Reimu's face. “Here!”

Reimu reached out to take the two, and at a prompting gesture from Chen, pushed the flap on the box open. Inside the box, twenty or so colored points, in various states of wear, poked out at her. “They're called crayons,” Chen said. “You can use them to draw.”

“Huh...” Chen was watching expectantly, so Reimu slid one of the crayons out and made a mark on the top sheet of paper. Not knowing what else to do, she smiled and said, “They're nice, thanks.”

“I thought so! One time I was sick, and Lady Yukari got those for me, so I thought you might like 'em too!” Grinning proudly, Chen crossed her arms, with her tails giving excited little flicks behind her back. “Ran doesn't think of this kinda stuff. That's why she's got me around, you know?”

“Yeah...” Even after living with her for weeks, Reimu didn't quite know how to handle Chen. Or children in general, really. Marisa was the one who had ended up with half the fairies in Gensokyo treating her like a surrogate big sister. Reimu had never had the same gift, but after brief consideration, reached over and gave Chen a rewarding pat between the ears. “You should sneak out before Ran notices you're in here. I'll try to draw you something today, okay?”

* * *

Reimu had no idea of what to draw, but it was a welcome distraction from other matters. After doodling for an hour, she settled on scenery, a particular bend in the river where she liked to fish. It was supposed to be a gift for Chen, after all, and that was a safely neutral topic. Maybe Chen would appreciate the little fish that she'd doodled in the river, who knew.

It was a distracting enough exercise that she didn't notice the sound of footsteps approaching before the door slid open. This time, it was Yukari again. She was carrying another steaming bowl on a tray, with chopsticks laying across the top. “Good evening, Reimu.”

“Evening...”

Reimu slid the crayons and paper aside, but not quickly enough. As Yukari sat down by her bedside, she bent over to peek at the drawing. “Hmm. In my experience, trees aren't so lumpy.”

“My hands are still shaky,” Reimu said, and pulled a sheet over the items. Turning back to Yukari, she prepared to tell her to leave, only to catch the smell of the food that she'd brought this time.

It was another meat dish... but the difference was instantly noticeable. Where the broth earlier had just made her hunger spike, this one threatened to push her into a frenzy. It was a warm, rich, heavy smell, one that put her senses on edge and sent her mouth watering. It took an act of will for her to keep herself in place and not rip the bowl out of Yukari's hands. “Th-that's...?”

“Human, yes,” Yukari said. Dipping the chopsticks into the bowl, she fished out a few noodles. As she lifted them up, she continued, “Ramen, actually. Eating the bones is considered unfashionable these days, but Ran makes a wonderful stock with them. A bit like tonkotsu. It's better for the colder months, but...” She pulled the noodles to her lips and slurped them up, then let out a soft sigh of satisfaction. “... would you like a bite?”

Reimu's stomach churned, torn between hunger and disgust. “I already said no.”

“Mmh, suit yourself.”

As she uneasily watched Yukari slurp up a second bite, an even less pleasant thought occurred to Reimu. “That's not... in anything I've eaten here, is it?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. Most youkai don't need to eat much. We usually only have it once a month. But since it's a special occasion...”

“Ngh.” Reimu pried her gaze away from the bowl, but the smell remained a constant presence tugging at her senses. Staring at the floor, she mumbled, “What was their name?”

“Excuse me?”

“Their name,” Reimu repeated, louder this time. “The person that you're eating.”

“I don't know. Do you know the name of every animal you've ever eaten?”

“That's not the same!”

“Is it?” Yukari paused to eat, hurrying to catch up before the noodles got soggy. From the corner of her eye, Reimu saw her pluck a piece of meat from the broth and pop it into her mouth. If she hadn't known, she would have thought it was pork or beef. “Animals can become gods or sentient youkai. Tewi used to be a normal rabbit, after all, and I seem to remember you enjoying rabbit stew a few times.”

“That's... not the same.”

“Ah, so it's different if you're closer to enlightenment? I trust that you won't complain if a celestial eats you, then.” Yukari hefted another few noodles from her bowl, then paused thoughtfully. “I probably shouldn't joke about that. That Hinanawi girl just might have little enough sense to try it.”

Reimu huffed and slid further down into bed again. “You know what I mean.”

“Let's assume that I do, and that I don't actually know some very intelligent crows. What about it?”

“I-it's wrong! That's the point!”

“And yet, it's necessary.” Yukari's voice grew more serious now. She drank the last of the broth from the bowl, then sat it down, with her chopsticks lined up neatly at the top of the tray. “As a human, you were able to choose whether or not to eat animals. As a youkai, you don't have the same luxury with regards to humans.”

“I could just not eat.”

“Mmh. You could.”

“... what would happen?”

“Under normal circumstances, after going long enough without spiritual nourishment, a youkai who began life as a human would exhaust their energy and become a normal human again. But you're a shikigami. Your mind and spirit are nearly inseparable. If you go long enough without spiritual nourishment... you will most likely die. Or fall into a coma. It's hard to say.”

Reimu let out a slow, measured breath. She'd expected something like that. Some cold, dutiful part of her brain, the one that kept her going during incidents when it was four AM and she hadn't had time to eat since breakfast, stepped in to take the reins. “How long is 'too long'?”

“A few months, maybe,” Yukari said softly.

A few months. By July, she would probably be dead. In a coma. Gone, in any case. The only tiny glimmer of hope to the idea was that it meant that she didn't have to commit to anything just yet. “What if... I decided to do that? Just not eat?”

“If you're intent on that course of action,” Yukari said, keeping her voice carefully neutral, “Ran and I will make you as comfortable as we can.”

It seemed like the moral thing to do. Emotionally, Reimu couldn't find the will. She felt very tired, all of a sudden. “Whatever. I'll think about it,” she sighed, once it was obvious that she wasn't going to be able to find it in herself to make a decision tonight. “Could you bring me something to eat? … something—“

“Without any human in it, I know.” Yukari said. She pushed herself to standing and approached the bedside. Only once she was close did Reimu notice how much the conversation seemed to have exhausted her, too. Her smile was thin and tight. _She can still see my emotions, too..._ The thought made a flash of guilt run through her. If Yukari had managed that sales pitch even after sampling Reimu's disgust for the idea, she was dedicated, at least. “Is there anything else that you'd like?”

Reimu glanced to her bookshelves. They were still sparsely populated, but she'd barely had time to crack most of the books on them yet. She supposed that she should get used to a lot of reading, if she was thinking about spending the rest of her life confined to bed. “I'm fine for now.”

Yukari nodded. “I'll let you rest, then. If you need anything else, just let me know. Through telepathy, please. Ran and Chen will be sleeping soon.”

“Uh-huh.” Reimu sat in silence while Yukari gathered up her tray and now-empty bowl. As she headed toward the door, Reimu found herself speaking up again. “Um, Yukari?”

“Hmm?”

“I'm sorry.” Reimu wasn't accustomed to apologizing for her behavior, certainly not to youkai. The act left her feeling vulnerable. It felt necessary, though. This couldn't have been what Yukari had in mind when she'd made Reimu her shikigami, desperate or not. She was suddenly, acutely aware of how little it felt like she'd given back since Yukari had saved her life. “I mean... Thanks for putting up with me.”

“Hmh? Reimu, dear, I'm millennia old. I think that you'll find that it takes much more than this to test my patience.” After pushing the door open, Yukari gave her one last look. “Get your rest. I'll be back soon.”


	15. Chapter 15

The days continued, in their new, unfocused fashion. So did Yukari's quiet patience. She'd come in every morning and evening with Reimu's two main meals, and spend an hour or two talking with her each time. After the first day, their conversations avoided the topic of Reimu's diet. In a way, it was nice. Avoiding the big issues, they didn't have anything to discuss but small talk and gossip. During their conversations, Reimu could almost imagine that she was sitting on the shrine's steps again, and not confined to a bed.

At times, her hunger was like a fire in her stomach, making it impossible to think about anything else. Other times, it ebbed away, leaving her feeling almost normal for a precious few hours.

Above all, she tried to keep herself too busy to dwell on the question of whether or not to allow herself to keep starving. She read a few of the books on philosophy and divination that she'd grabbed when she moved in, but often found herself unable to focus well enough to follow them. After Chen seemed overjoyed at getting the first picture, she tried to draw her a new one every day.

Today, she was practicing divinations. It was one of the few nearly-productive things that she could do in bed. Her shikigami programming would allow her to perform one in seconds in her head, but she had no reason to hurry. Instead, she tossed coins by hand, looking up hexagrams in books and pulling up astrology charts, combining half a dozen methods for the kind of precision that she'd learned to associate with Ran.

There was no way that she was going to check her own destiny right now. Nothing good could come of it. Everybody else, though, was fair game.

Marisa: a high chance of minor conflict, followed by material gain without spiritual advancement. No surprises there. Sanae: contentment, with a 61% chance of beginning a new romantic relationship by the turn of the season. She'd be happy to hear that. She'd certainly whined about her lack of dating options often enough. Youmu: hard work, hampered by a counterproductive amount of self-reliance; she would lose something, but ultimately not miss it. That was a bit vague, and boring enough that Reimu didn't bother with the further calculations to clarify it. Yukari: … hadn't had her birthdate and time in the very thorough list that Reimu had found loaded in her shikigami programming. It was probably best not to think about it too hard.

Shiko... _“Yukari, could you take a look at something?”_

_“Of course. One moment.”_

By the time Yukari arrived, Reimu had laid out her entire thought process. The focused work had helped to keep her otherwise meandering mind collected, but presenting its contents was rather harder. “So,” she said, after five minutes of explanation. “I'm reading this right, right? Her... lack of personal cultivation...” She furrowed her brow as she spoke, tracing her finger from diagram to diagram across four different books. “... leads to a 47% chance of great disaster, with a... um, 31.1% chance of death? That seems pretty high.”

“You made a mistake in one cross reference, but that was otherwise pretty good for a beginner,” Yukari said, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “But, yes, those generally line up with Ran's estimations.”

“You already knew?”

“Ran performs periodic divinations to predict any major changes in Gensokyo. It's only natural to check the shrine maiden, of course.”

It made enough sense. Reimu accepted the argument and considered where to take the conversation from there, until a thought caught in her mind. “... so did you know that I was going to...?”

“Your youkai hunt? 'Great danger 61%, death 18%,'” Yukari recited. “I did insist on coming along for a reason. And warned you to that effect, as I remember. I simply... failed to prevent you from being injured. The future is always mutable, but that doesn't mean that trying to intervene it is always enough.”

With a frown, Reimu looked back to the charts. “I don't know how to check for how she's going to die, though. She's making the youkai angry, so I think somebody's going to try killing her, but...”

“I wouldn't be surprised. That isn't divination, it's common sense. Most shrine maidens die to youkai,” Yukari said. “Before the spell card system, most meetings between humans and youkai ended in a fight to the death. Nobody wants to go back to those days... except apparently your successor.”

"She's not evil. She just really doesn't trust youkai," Reimu said, with a sigh. _And nine years ago, I would have killed Chen, myself._ "That doesn't mean she deserves to die."

“And what do you plan to do about it?”

“I... don't know. There has to be something I can do.”

“Taking all the responsibility in Gensokyo on yourself again, hm?” Yukari said with a slight smile. “... but I agree. That would be best for everybody. Although you might find it easier if you were able to walk more than ten meters without collapsing.”

Reimu scowled and looked back to the charts. Yukari had been thankfully silent on the topic of her health for the past few days. There had been no way it wouldn't come up again, but she still wasn't prepared for it. “Do we really have to talk about that right now?”

“Not if you don't want to. I haven't heard a final decision from you, though.”

Reimu nodded glumly. Even after days of thinking about it, she hadn't come any closer to a resolution. It was just one of those sorts of questions. There was no option here that appealed to her. Every time she was even broadly reminded of it, it tied her brain up in knots, with no resolution in sight. “I don't want to eat people. It's wrong,” she murmured. It was the only thing that she was sure about.

“Hmm. I can't pretend that it's the moral thing to do, so if you were hoping for a 'law of the jungle' speech, you're going to be disappointed. Eating humans is the cost of our continued existence as youkai, and nothing more. It is no more or less moral than when the wolf kills the rabbit. But...these days, most of the outsiders that we eat also come here intending to commit suicide. After the nearby area in the outside world got a reputation for being dangerous, it started attracting those who wanted to die anyway. It still isn't moral, of course, but many of them would have found other ways to kill themselves.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Perhaps a little. You'll also find that most youkai don't need to eat much. A handful of humans could feed all of Gensokyo for months, if we rationed ourselves. Over the course of a millennium, you might only be responsible for a dozen deaths.”

“That's still too many.”

“Is it?” Yukari raised one eyebrow. “What's an acceptable number? Ten? Five? One? How many strangers' lives are an acceptable trade for your own?”

“ _None_.”

“Is that so? Unconditionally? You've killed youkai to save human lives. How is this different? Who determines when the scales are balanced?”

“I don't know, probably the yama,” Reimu said dismissively. The conversation felt like it was sapping what little energy she had. With a grunt of exertion—even scooting around the bed was a strain in her weakened state—she slid over and leaned against Yukari from behind. Wrapping her arms around Yukari's waist, she pulled herself in close.

This, this was one of the few things that she'd found that helped soothe her when she got too worried at the looming possibility of her own death. Even in the dead of night, she could always feel Yukari's comforting presence through the mental link. Sometimes, it felt like the only thing that kept her going. She buried her face against Yukari's shoulder. “I don't want to eat people,” she said again, exhaling slowly.

“I know.”

“But I don't want to die.”

“I don't want you to, myself.” Yukari reached up and tousled Reimu's hair with one hand. “Reimu, I know that this is a hard decision. It goes against everything that you were taught is right. But... you were young when you became the shrine maiden. You were barely more than a child when the village chose you. I saw you on the first day. They'd given you the smallest uniform, and it was still too baggy for you. You were... very small, back then.” Her voice was quiet now, with a faraway, wistful tone to it. “You were barely more than a child, and you were chosen to be the line between humanity and the darkness. You spent ten years of your life protecting the balance of Gensokyo, and you barely got so much as a 'thank you.' Nobody could blame you for a little selfishness now.”

“Eating people is... a bit more than 'selfish.'”

“Mmh.” Yukari stayed silent for several seconds. “... I was involved in the decision to choose you as the shrine maiden, you know. There were no good options. The previous one died so young that they hadn't even started training a replacement yet. Choosing you was the only thing we could have done. It was also unforgivable.” Yukari leaned back now, until they were almost cheek-to-cheek. Below, her hands slid down to rest on top of Reimu's. “You deserve to be happy. I owe you that much.”

Reimu could feel Yukari's body heat through the thin layer of her clothes. It was a strangely familiar sensation, like the comforting presence that she felt when Yukari reached out to her through their mental link. Touching it, now, she was surprised at the strength of Yukari's emotions, cold and sharp like a fresh memory of loss. Normally, she would have recoiled from the sensation. Today, though, she allowed it to suffuse her. She felt Yukari reach out for her across the bond in return. They sat in silence, sharing their mingled regrets and fear and melancholy and disgust.

Reimu did have to admit to herself: She couldn't keep living like this until she died. Not happily, at least. Other people might have been able to, but she hadn't seen some of her friends in weeks. Was she going to visit them like this, and have their last memories of her be her laying on her death bed, a shadow of her former self? That almost struck her as worse than never seeing them again. And now, in Yukari's emotions, she got her first taste of just how long a youkai's life could be. Was she selfless enough to sacrifice decades of life for some strangers' wellbeing? Centuries? Millennia?

She wanted so badly to be able to say yes. Instead, she felt her body moving almost like she was in a dream, with her conscious still not quite claiming responsibility for her actions. “How much... would I even need to eat?”

* * *

Reimu still couldn't believe that she'd allowed Yukari to talk her into this. Or, at least, she liked to believe that that was how it had worked. After that first question, one tiny concession in a week-long standoff, it had all been over. She'd just kept asking more and more direct questions, thinking, _I'm too far to back out now_ , for the entire conversation. She never quite decided on anything. Instead, it was the slow capitulation of somebody who had wanted to be convinced all along. Before she'd known it, Yukari was asking, “What sort of dish would you like for your first time?”

She was torn between nausea and hunger. It was becoming a familiar sensation. Her stomach was already completely empty. She hadn't been eating or drinking much for the past few days, since it only served to torment her with her lack of satiation. What little had been in her stomach this morning, she'd vomited out long ago. She still found herself dry-heaving occasionally, when she thought too hard about what was coming.

And yet, she felt relieved. The decision had been made. The great moral conflict was over. She didn't need to struggle anymore. She could just sit back and enjoy the consequences.

Footsteps approached her room, and Reimu was filled with an odd mixture of dread and relief. “Are you ready?” Yukari asked through the door.

“I-I, um...” Reimu took a deep breath, then hissed it out between her teeth to steady herself. “Yeah, come in.”

Without response, Yukari pushed the door open. She was dressed in her full formal regalia, the white dress with a violet panel. It was the first time that Reimu had seen her in it since her collapse. In her hands was a saucer. On top was a thick, generous wedge of cake. It was a miniature work of art, neat and perfect enough that it would almost be a sacrilege to eat it. The body was marbled yellow and white, looking as delicate as spun sugar. Peeking out from within it were tidy lines of strawberries. The white icing on top was thick and gooey, and Reimu knew that it was the perfect balance of sweet and buttery richness. She'd seen this cake before, after all, and eaten some very similar ones.

The ones she'd eaten, though, lacked an important ingredient. Two thick, glistening red stripes ran down the center, holding the layers together. The color was just a bit too dark for her to convince herself that it was only jam.

“That's one of Sakuya's...?”

“Her cakes for the devil's sister, yes. You'll need more than blood eventually, but this will do for now,” Yukari said. “Remilia sends her regards, and wishes you a speedy recovery.”

Yukari offered the cake over, and Reimu hesitated. This close, she imagined that she could smell the stink of death coming off of it. It smelled only of sugar and raspberries, though. Slowly, she reached out and took it, then lowered the saucer onto her lap. Yukari sat down on the edge of the bed and wrapped one arm around her for support. “Take your time.”

Reimu nodded, but could barely bring herself to move otherwise. Her throat was tight and sore from hours of choking back her nausea. As she stared down at the cake, it felt like time in the room had ground to a halt. Outside, she could hear birds singing, as if trying to remind her that the world would keep moving whether or not she was there to see it. Chen peeked into the doorway, only for Ran's hand to tug her back. A hushed conversation came from the other side of the door.

With her hand trembling, she lifted the delicate silver fork from the saucer. The bite that she cut off was a small one, but she made sure to get a generous piece of a red layer. There was no point in easing herself into this now. As she raised it, she took another slow, steadying breath. Then, before she could stop herself, she pushed it into her mouth.

Reimu's first reaction was to cringe. She'd expected some horrible, unclean taste. Mostly, it just tasted like cake. Sweet, with a delicate body and a rich, creamy icing. Only after those initial flavors had spread across her tongue did she taste the undertones: The coppery tang of human blood, the taste of busted lips and missing teeth. It was...

It was _wonderful_.

It quenched some primal need she'd barely even been aware of, like water to somebody dying of thirst. The tension drained out of Reimu's body, and for the first time in a week, she could feel herself growing less hungry. By the time she swallowed, she was already cutting off another bite. She let out a shaky sigh of mixed desperation and satisfaction, and Yukari's arm gave her a reassuring squeeze.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Yukari said softly. “I think this calls for a celebration.”


	16. Chapter 16

“Hah! Too slow!”

“I'll get you next time, though.”

“Nyeeeeeh!” Chen stuck her tongue out, then dropped to all fours and bounded up another ten or twelve stairs. Reimu ran after her.

Normally, Reimu would have a bit more dignity than to play a game of tag on the steps of Hakugyokurou. After a week spent in bed and anticipating her death, though, she was still exulting in the simple ability to walk. For the first time in almost two weeks, her thoughts were clear, her body felt light and whole, and she could do whatever she wanted. She wasn't about to waste the opportunity.

Reimu moved up the steps at a measured pace, just slow enough to give Chen ample time to see her coming. Chen stayed crouched down with her tails swishing behind her anxiously. As Reimu reached out, she leapt a few steps further away. “Nope!”

“I guess you're just too fast for me,” Reimu said, taking care to sound suitably defeated.

“Hah! Watch this!” Chen dropped to all fours again and bolted up the stairway, leaping over four or five steps at a time. From somewhere far below, Ran shouted, “Chen, be careful!”

Without a hyperactive bakeneko bouncing around her ankles, Reimu was able to relax and enjoy the walk. Spring was flower-viewing season in Hakugyokurou, and it was the peak of the season to boot. The stairway was flanked on either side with what seemed like an endless field of cherry trees, every single one in a perfect, full bloom. The air was full of falling petals as thick as a snowfall, and they gave the ground a perfect, light cover of them. No matter what happened in the Netherworld, it conspired to happen artfully.

Flower-viewing had been one of Reimu's requirements for the party that Yukari kept insisting on. She didn't want a party just to celebrate her recovery. Even now, rejoicing in her ability to walk, guilt was still gnawing at the back of her mind: she had eaten human blood, and she had liked it. _Loved_ it, even. Driven onward by her hunger, she hadn't stopped until she'd scraped every last fleck of red from the plate.

It wasn't much, she told herself. A deciliter or two. She'd probably made Marisa spill more than that in some of their rougher sparring matches. But it didn't feel worthy of celebration.

Even so, Reimu was in a good mood. By the time she approached the top of the staircase, Chen had already reached the front door, where she was interrogating an annoyed-looking Youmu. The muffled sounds of music and laughter came from behind the mansion. It sounded like plenty of other guests were already here, and most of them were people that Reimu probably hadn't seen in weeks.

She could worry about moral questions another time. Today was a day to relax with friends.

* * *

“Reimuuuuuuuuuu!”

Reimu was barely out the doorway into the mansion's rear garden when Suika tackled her... and when Suika tackled somebody, they felt it. She stumbled a few steps before managing to stop herself, then tousled the tiny oni's hair with a smile. “Hi. I haven't seen you in a while.”

“I knoooow.” Judging by her drawl, Suika was already pretty drunk. That wasn't anything new. Taking a step away, she grabbed one of Reimu's hands and tugged her along. “C'mon! I saved ya a spot!”

Suika hurried through the crowd, and most of the other revelers wisely cleared a path in front of her. At the back of the garden, a circle was seated under one of the larger trees—Alice, Marisa, Sanae, Aya, Nitori, and Hina—with a sizable collection of bottles and cups sitting in the center. Marisa, notably, was already sprawled on the ground. With her hat pulled over her eyes, Reimu couldn't even tell if she was awake.

A chorus of greetings rose from the group, and before she had even finished sitting, Suika was already pouring her a drink. “You've gotta try this stuff~. Special oni Seven-Flower Sake!”

“... thanks, I think.” Reimu settled down and took the cup, but didn't try it just yet. Any drink with 'oni' in the name was best approached with forewarning and a healthy respect. Plus, other things were already tugging at her attention. Just being this close to Marisa and Sanae made her anxious. Logically, she knew that she'd spent plenty of time around humans when she visited the village, and nothing had gone wrong. Emotionally... it was a bit more complicated. _Are they going to smell like food if we get close enough?_

But today was for relaxing, right. She lifted her cup and took a sip, and a dozen sweet things—violets and honey and the slightest hint of some fruit that she couldn't quite name—dissolved across her tongue. The second it hit her stomach, warmth suffused through her body.

… right, this stuff was going to be dangerous. She sat the dish back down with care. Judging by how quickly it had made her lightheaded, it just might have been explosive.

"Hey, Reimu!" Sanae said, once the round of greetings had finished. She sounded like the only sober one in the group. "Did you ask about letting us visit your house yet?"

"Oh, no, sorry. Some other stuff... kind of came up."

"Oh. Well, it's not a big deal. How have you b—"

“My,” somebody said from behind Reimu. It wasn't loud, but there was just something about the tone that made it hard to keep talking over the interruption. “Reimu. It's so nice to see you up and about.”

Reimu would know the voice of Remilia Scarlet anywhere. She probably heard it in her nightmares sometimes. She turned aside, and yes, there was Remilia's perpetually self-assured face smirking down at her, with Sakuya holding an umbrella overhead. “Hi, Remilia,” she sighed.

“I'm told that our mansion's cake helped in your recovery,” Remilia said, in what was quite possibly the smuggest tone that Reimu had ever heard. 

Cake. _That_ really wasn't a conversation that she wanted to be having in front of Sanae and Marisa. Or ever, really. “A-ah, right, but...”

“It is, of course, a rare honor,” Remilia continued over Reimu's stammering, and clasped a hand to her chest proudly. Reimu shot Aya her best desperate please-do-something expression. “To be allowed to dine on the same food as the Scarlet siblings.“

“Yes, thanks for the help,” Reimu said, through clenched teeth, without taking her eyes off of Aya.

“If you'd like, we could arrange to have you over for dinn—“

Aya finally seemed to take the hint. “So!” She said, loudly enough that people on the other side of the garden probably heard her. “Has everybody heard the story of how I kicked Reimu's butt?!”

“What?!” Reimu felt a wave of relief at the interruption, but she couldn't allow it to show. Instead, she whirled on Aya and shouted back. “That's not what happened! I was kicking _your_ butt! The only story here is that your boss makes guests fight people!” She took a swig of her drink for good measure.

“Eh?!” From the sound of things, Aya was just as drunk as anybody else present. After her initial surprise wore off, she leaned forward, resting one hand on the ground for balance. “Hey, hey, he couldn't have known that you were sick or whatever!” Grinning, she more loudly added, “Reimu's just mad because she lost a fight for once.”

It seemed to have accomplished its intended effect. Remilia was still standing there, stunned by the unfamiliar experience of being ignored. The rest of the group was staring at the abrupt argument in confusion. “What in the hell are you two shouting about?” Nitori grumbled.

“Weeeeeell,” Aya said. “I don't know if Reimu actually wants anybody to hear the story of her shameful defeat...”

A bottle was traveling around the circle. Reimu held her cup out, and Suika was more than happy to fill it until it overflowed. “I'm over it,” she said, and took an oversized sip. “Do whatever you want.”

“Oho, well then...!”

* * *

Aya's story had been exactly the icebreaker that the group had needed. After ten minutes of descriptions of Reimu stumbling through spell cards—complete with impersonations of the way that she had apparently wobbled at one point—all the tension had been dispelled, and Remilia had long since given up on getting a word in edgewise. The group had relaxed into rounds of half-shouted anecdotes, pushing drinks on each other, and at one point, a brief wrestling match between Marisa and Suika. 

After the sun sank below the horizon, the guests started drifting toward home. Marisa was one of the first to leave, carried off by a weary and rather more sober Alice. Suika fell asleep beneath the tree, snoring loudly and immune to any attempts to wake her. Nitori wandered off, complaining that the food had been too sweet. By the time that Youmu started carrying the leftovers back indoors, there were only a handful of guests remaining. A rolling game of tag between the fairies was drifting back and forth across the grounds. Aya meandered between the groups, camera in hand in case anybody slipped up. A few couples were scattered about. And beneath one tree, Ran was sitting, with Chen napping in her lap.

“I guess it's been a pretty big day for her, huh?” Reimu said, as she took a seat next to the pair.

“Mmhm.” Ran said. “She has a bad habit of getting too excited and wearing herself out early.”

“Oh. Sorry if I was part of that.”

“What do you mean?”

“We were running on the stairs earlier...”

“It doesn't take much to make Chen run on those stairs. She does it every time we come here,” Ran lightly ran her fingers across one of Chen's ears. It gave a flick under the attention. She smiled. “... I'm glad that Chen has somebody to play with now. Did you know that she showed me every picture you drew for her last week? She was _very_ proud. I think she looks up to you already.”

“Oh. Well, um, I'm glad. She's cute.” Reimu was surprised at how pleased the news left her. She kind of liked the idea of Chen looking up to her. She could be a bit annoying sometimes, but she was pretty bright. Maybe this was what having a kid sister was like.

Now that the sun was down, the stars had come out. They were pretty, but they bothered Reimu for some reason that she couldn't quite pin down until she'd been looking at them for a few minutes. They weren't the right stars. Or, rather, they weren't the stars that she knew from the world of the living. They were dimmer, arranged into constellations and patterns that didn't fit anything in Reimu's quite extensive astronomical knowledge. She was just about to ask Ran about it when she noticed something more important: there, silhouetted against the sky, Yukari and Yuyuko were sitting together on the roof of the mansion, gazing out over the cherry trees together. Thanks to her night vision, she could just make out that they were holding hands.

Reimu glanced over to Ran, wondering if she'd noticed yet. Not that it seemed particularly secretive, now that she thought about it. She'd seen Yuyuko and Yukari being openly affectionate at gatherings before. Which meant...

She wasn't sure what it meant, actually. “... could I ask you something?”

“Of course, go ahead.”

“How do...” Now that she had permission, Reimu wasn't sure how to phrase the question that was on her mind. “What is your relationship with Yukari?”

“Hmm?” Ran tilted her head, with one ear lifting in confusion. “Beyond being master and shikigami, you mean?”

“A-ah, right. It's just... I mean. You seem... you know. I've seen you kiss and...”

Blushing, Reimu decided to stop before she made an even bigger fool of herself, but Ran didn't seem annoyed. “... I think I understand,” she finally said. “It's like I said before. Yukari's joy is mine, and mine is hers. But, to answer the question that I think you intend to ask, our relationship is a romantic one, yes.”

“Oh.” Reimu couldn't stop herself from glancing back toward the rooftop. “So it doesn't bother you that Yuyuko...?”

Ran followed Reimu's gaze. Her face lit up in realization when she saw the pair, and she shook her head. “It did at first, I'll admit. But I trust Yukari, and I know that loving Lady Yuyuko doesn't make her love me any less.”

“Huh...” Reimu supposed that was true. From the one time she'd accidentally peeked on Yukari's emotions when she was alone with Ran, there was no denying that. “So do you...?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you also, um. You know.” Somehow, Ran's calm amusement was only making this more embarrassing for her. “... have other people too?”

Ran let out a soft sigh of exasperation. “You should let me give you lessons on clear communication sometime,” she said, in a half-joking manner. “It can be an important skill for a shikigami. But no, Yukari is my only lover. I love Chen, of course, but...” she glanced down and stroked one hand along the bakeneko's side. Chen squirmed in her sleep, tails flicking. “She's more like a daughter to me.”

“I... see.”

Ran looked back up at the stars, and spent a few minutes in contemplative silence before she spoke again. “You might find youkai relationships to be more... chaotic, than human ones. Most of us are centuries old, and before Gensokyo was created, our identity could change every time that a new myth came along. There's less focus on formal relationships or choosing a single perfect partner. 'Love whoever is around to be loved,' when it comes to romance, at least. … of course, I say that, but it's been six hundred years since I saw anybody but Yukari. I guess I'm not a very youkai-like youkai.” She glanced over, with a self-depreciating smile.

“You're too reasonable to be a youkai,” Reimu said.

“Maybe so,” Ran conceded. “… do you mind if I ask you the same thing?”

“Huh?”

“About your relationship with Yukari.”

“... oh. Well, we're...” Reimu had planned to finish with 'friends,' but paused. What in the heck _were_ they? They hadn't done anything overtly romantic, but they could be very... affectionate, at times. Now that she'd stopped interpreting Yukari's every move as an attempt to get a rise out of her, she was surprised to find that she sometimes enjoyed it. “... I don't know,” she said, left surprised and blushing by her own answer. “I've kind of had other stuff on my mind.”

“That's fair,” Ran said. Her tails gave a slight twitch that Reimu had learned meant that she was deep in thought. “I think you should know that taking shikigami doesn't agree with youkai. A youkai's spiritual nature is defined by her personality and actions. We're supposed to be self-centered creatures who follow our own whims. If Yukari started ordering me to do things against my will... I probably wouldn't notice anything, but at some point, I would stop being myself.”

“Is that why she was so... hands-off when I was deciding whether to become a shikigami?”

Ran nodded. “Part of it. Yukari and I have had centuries to get used to each other. She knows my boundaries, and trusts me to do what's best for me. With you... she's afraid that you feel obligated to repay her for saving your life. With that hanging over her head, there are some topics that she doesn't feel comfortable bringing up.”

“If Yukari wants to say something, she should just say it,” Reimu said... then paused, as she considered the comment in the context of the previous conversation. “W-wait, so are you saying that Yukari wants to...?”

“Hmm?” Ran said, tilting her head to the side in feigned ignorance. “I'm only saying that there are things that Yukari won't talk about unless you're the one who raises them.”

“Like love.”

“... a-ah.” Ran froze, looking shocked that Reimu had put two and two together. _Now I see why she leaves the manipulation to Yukari._ She recovered quickly, though. “Um. Well! Among other things. I'm sorry for meddling, but... apparently I have to meddle occasionally to remind people that I'm a kitsune.”

“I should have known better than to think there was a youkai who _wasn't_ going to stick her nose places it doesn't belong,” Reimu said with an indulgent sigh. Afterward, she looked back up to the rooftop, where Yukari and Yuyuko were still sitting together. “She's not going to be there all night, is she?”

“It might be a while,” Ran said. “If you want, we can go home. I'm sure she won't mind.”

“No, it's fine.” With a yawn, Reimu allowed herself to sink lower against the tree. She wasn't sure what she would do when she got back to the homestead, anyway. She couldn't get much training done without Yukari around, and practically everybody that she knew was asleep by now. But, for now, Reimu was happy enough to relax beneath the cherry blossoms, stroking Chen's hair and looking up at the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Love whoever is around to be loved" is, of course, a quote from the Kurt Vonnegut novel Sirens of Titan.
> 
> I will leave the question of whether this means that Ran has read Kurt Vonnegut as an exercise for the reader.


	17. Chapter 17

In the days after Reimu's recovery, she began actively keeping tabs on Shiko, using every resource at her disposal. The crows reported that she had a confrontation with somebody who was probably Reisen on the village's outskirts. A grudgingly-purchased copy of the Bunbunmaru had a front page photo of her glaring face as she tried to chase Aya down. (That part, at least, Reimu couldn't blame her for.) A visit to Mystia's newly-reopened lamprey stand got her a gossipy story about the Fairies of Light tricking a visitor to the shrine into eating a hallucinatory mushroom, and Shiko subsequently trying to chase them out of their house near the shrine.

And still, Shiko's odds of dying didn't budge. The new shrine maiden was causing problems for everybody, and there was a 31.1% chance that she was going to die for it.

With Ran's assistance, Reimu had performed ever-finer divinations, all centered around one question: _when and how is Shiko going to die?_

It was the kind of answer that fate didn't like to let slip easily. With the dining room table piled high with charts, reference books, yarrow sticks, inscribed bones, and dishes of water, they'd spent days working their way through all of the what-ifs.

_If Marisa went to Alice's for breakfast on the day of the 18th (71% chance) and the Three Fairies of Light went to bed before 10 PM on the previous night (12% chance) and it rained on the 16th (38% chance) and the village flower shop's runner was dodging work (72% chance) and..._

The end result had been a massive list of days and probabilities. Most of them were small. Fractions of fractions of a percent.

Today was different. Today, there was a 44% chance that Shiko would confront Yuuka, an 84% chance that they would fight if so, and a 21% chance that she would die if they fought. There was a 7.7% chance that Shiko would die today.

It still didn't sound like much, but in a string of point-zero-zero-zero-zero-zeroes, it was hard to miss.

So, here Reimu was, sitting in her bedroom and peeking into Gensokyo through a miniscule gap. Through it, she could see a mostly-featureless patch of road, and on the other side, a Jizo statue. It was the path that came closest to the Garden of the Sun, and the only walking route between it and the human village. And if there was one thing that everybody knew about Yuuka Kazami, it was that she walked everywhere.

Yuuka walked everywhere, unless she had a good reason to fly. Yuuka was polite, unless insulted. Yuuka was peaceful, unless provoked.

In a lesser youkai, such responses would be called timidity. With Yuuka, it was more complicated: She gave the impression that she simply didn't bother to exert herself against the world, because the world no longer provided worthy challenges. It would be like a lion bothering to swat every flea that bit it. Some things just didn't merit the effort. For Yuuka, that was practically everything.

On the other side of the gap, Yuuka stepped into view, walking at a leisurely pace, with her parasol tilted back against a shoulder. She continued down the road without noticing the tiny gap hovering meters away. When she passed out of view, Reimu closed the gap and opened a new one, following her from afar.

It was the best way to handle things, she'd decided. She could have just walked with Yuuka, but apart from being awkward, she wasn't sure if that would get the results that she needed. Waiting until Shiko was prepared to attack and then intervening... it seemed like the better approach. She'd be more likely to realize the magnitude of the mistake that she was making.

Reimu trailed along behind Yuuka. The trees around her thinned out into the tamer forests around the village, then houses. As Yuuka started passing human pedestrians, Reimu grew more cautious. She shifted her gaps to the rooftop level, looking down on the street below. The view from above was an interesting lesson in human/youkai relations. Yuuka's red outfit and brilliantly white parasol stood out like a beacon in a sea of yukata. In front of her, the humans parted, subtly moving out of her way. Once she was past, they turned to watch her from behind, whispering between themselves.

Yuuka stopped at the flower shop, and looked over the wares while the owner fussed nervously. She visited the more expensive of the village's two tea shops and made small talk with one of the employees while he packaged a custom blend in a small wooden box. She stopped into a tailor's and browsed without buying anything. Reimu was just starting to grow bored when Yuuka stepped back outside, and she spotted the unmistakable red-white of a shrine maiden uniform storming through the crowd toward her.

Reimu leaned closer and pulled her gap wider. Warm noontime air drifted out against her face. She pushed the gap closer, easing it into the air over the street. It was a risky spot—it would be pretty impossible to miss if anybody looked up—but she was going to want a good vantage point for this. Besides, Shiko was providing ample distraction.

Most Gensokyo natives had the good sense to stay out of the way when they saw the Hakurei shrine maiden going somewhere in a rush. The sharper-eyed bystanders had already sensed trouble coming and slipped away. Those who were still left on the street were rapidly clearing the space in front of her.

Sensing the minor disturbance around her, Yuuka paused and turned around. Still smiling serenely, she met Shiko's eyes across the rapidly-clearing street. Shiko froze mid-step, her anger momentarily overridden by surprise at being noticed.

When a few seconds had passed without Shiko saying anything, Yuuka took the initiative. "Do you have business with me?"

"I..." Shiko seemed to realize that something here wasn't right, but held her ground. Reimu had to give her that much: There weren't many fifteen-year-olds who could push forward in the face of Yuuka's smiling indifference. "You're a youkai, right? What are you doing in the village?"

Yuuka hadn't budged since the start of the conversation. Now, she raised her shopping bags. "I'm shopping. Is there a problem?"

"Ms. Okuda. At the flower shop." Shiko uncertainly drew herself up to her full height. "She said that you threatened her." She was already spreading a stack of ofuda in her free hand.

Yuuka's eyes drifted to the ofuda, in a manner that made it clear that she saw them, but was not concerned. "Ah. I only said that her arrangement of corpses was artless, and offered to give her a demonstration."

Shiko's cheeks flushed, and her annoyance overpowered her fear for the moment. "You don't call that a threat?!"

"Oh, is it?" Yuuka said, with feigned innocence so perfect that even Reimu almost bought it.

"O-of course it is!" Shiko's anger seemed to be overriding whatever fear she had of Yuuka. Her hand crept upward, still clutching a fistful of ofuda. Reimu could see it now. It was an attack that would wreck most youkai, but for Yuuka, it would barely be an annoyance. Her parasol could deflect them harmlessly. Even if not, it took a lot more than that to slow her down. That single slap in the face would be all it took...

“Flowers! She was talking about flowers.” Pulling the gap wider, Reimu stepped out into midair above the confrontation. She plummeted toward the ground, and with the slightest push of her flight abilities, landed smoothly between the pair of them. They both went silent at the sudden interruption, with Shiko left staring in confusion. “Shiko, meet Yuuka Kazami. Yuuka, Shiko Hakurei.”

"Oh, a new shrine maiden?" Yuuka mimed a curtsey, without putting down her bags or her parasol. "It's a pleasure to meet you, of course."

"Yuuka," Reimu said, without taking her eyes off of Shiko. "You should know better than to tease the villagers."

"Hm, maybe it was in poor taste. My apologies," Yuuka said, in a sing-song voice. "But Reimu, you're interrupting our conversation. Ms. Hakurei, you were saying?"

Shiko was still tensed up, but she no longer looked seconds away from throwing a punch. The interruption had been just long enough for her to lose her momentum. Or realize the depth of her mistake, perhaps. “I... rrgh. If you threaten a villager again, I'll...!” Shiko started to raise the ofuda again, and hesitated. After a defeated sigh, she grumbled, “... just get out of here and don't cause any more trouble.”

There was a pause before Yuuka responded, just long enough to make it clear that the threat had very little to do with her decision. “I didn't plan on it. I hope that you have a good day,” she said, in a tone so sincere that it was almost more sarcastic for it. “Reimu. Nice to see you, as always.”

“ _Goodbye_ , Yuuka,” Reimu said, without turning around.

Yuuka proceeded on her merry way, and Reimu breathed a sigh of relief. She was still left with Shiko glaring at her, but the worst of the immediate threats was past.

As soon as Yuuka was out of earshot, Shiko's temper erupted again. “W-what the hell was that?! You think you can just jump in here and... and _interfere_?!”

“ _That_ ,” Reimu said, “was Yuuka Kazami. She's not like those fairies and beasts you've been beating up, do you understand? If you pick a serious fight with her, you'll be lucky if they find enough of you to bury.”

"I had it under control," Shiko said tersely. "Just because she's a youkai doesn't mean she can walk around threatening villagers."

“Is that really worth fighting over? Look, I was the shrine maiden, I know—“

“You aren't the shrine maiden anymore! I am! I'm trying to do my job!”

“And you're going to get yourself killed at this rate! I'm trying to help you!”

"Help me," Shiko said, with an incredulous laugh under her breath. "… let me tell you a story. The other day, this family came to visit the shrine. A woman and her two sons. Apparently, she didn't know I was inside, because she kept yelling at them. 'Don't run off! If you get lost around here, a youkai will eat you.'" 

Shiko paused for a moment, letting that sink in and glaring at Reimu as if challenging her to interrupt. "That's you, Reimu," she continued, and stepped forward, giving the gohei a demonstrative little jab toward her. "That's your... your, um, your _legacy_. People don't even feel safe around the shrine that's supposed to protect them. So don't talk like you have everything all figured out! I'm trying to clean up _your_ mess."

Outrage burnt in Reimu's chest. Her hand balled into a fist, and without thinking, she stepped forward. She and Shiko glared at each other, both tensed up, moments away from a fight. Reimu let out a slow breath and forced herself to relax. "Whatever," she said. "Do what you want."

The entire village seemed to have gone silent. Slowly, Shiko's furious blush drained away. “Get out of here,” she said, raising the ofuda. “Go. If I see you again, I'm treating you like any other youkai.”

Reimu hesitated, but while Shiko's hand was trembling, she seemed like she might just be committed enough to do it. Reimu could probably dodge the attack... and then what? She'd still be in a fight with the shrine maiden in the middle of the village. It wasn't going to accomplish anything, and there were about a thousand ways it could backfire.

Reimu raised her hands to show that she wasn't attacking. “You have a 31% chance of dying within the next three months,” she said. “I thought you should know.”

Shiko faltered, and her ofuda-filled hand slumped downward in internal conflict. Before she could put together a response, Reimu turned and walked away. She tried not to notice the way that the villagers parted in front of her and whispered behind her.

* * *

“What in the heck is that girl's problem?!”

“New shrine maidens usually are a little... headstrong,” Yukari said, and took a sip of her tea. “I seem to remember that I had to weaken a spot in the Hakurei barrier just to get the last shrine maiden's attention, and she still insisted on beating me up before she'd hear me out...”

Reimu scowled. She should have known that Yukari would bring that up. “I'm sure you think this is hilarious, but at this rate, even if she doesn't die, she's going to exterminate somebody.”

“And is this your plan? To personally break up every fight she tries to pick?”

“Well, no, but...”

When Reimu had gotten back to the homestead, Yukari had been waiting outside, with a fresh pot of tea steaming next to her. Almost like she had anticipated Reimu coming home angry and wanting to rant. Reimu suspected that she'd been spying on her emotions throughout the evening. It would be annoying if it hadn't been exactly what she'd needed. Damn thoughtful Yukari.

Yukari patted a spot on the steps next to herself. “Relax and have some tea.”

Reimu hesitated, wanting nothing more than to keep ranting. “You're not going to talk me out of this, so don't even try,” she said, as she scooted closer.

“Hmm, aren't you the one who was just complaining about somebody being headstrong?” Yukari said. She silently filled a cup and pushed it toward Reimu. “I don't plan to talk you out of it, but I do think it would be good for you to remember that you're not the shrine maiden anymore. You're no longer in charge of single-handedly enforcing the peace. It's okay to ask for help.”

“Eh.” Reimu took a sip of the tea. “... so if I asked, what would you say?”

“I might say that you're coming at it from the wrong direction.”

“And what's that supposed to mean?”

“Hmm. It seems to me that you're still thinking about the problem like a shrine maiden, not a youkai.”

“That's the vaguest thing I've ever heard.”

“Is it? Well, give it a few days and see if you come up with anything. Ran predicts that it will be a week or two before she's in any serious danger again. You have time to come up with something.”

“I guess,” Reimu said. Sighing, she sat her tea aside and leaned back. It wasn't the most comfortable position, but it left her looking up at the sky. She'd been slightly obsessed with the stars since her recovery. Not only had she missed them while she was stuck indoors, but now that she could read them, she found them comforting. Sometimes it was nice to be reminded that the world would keep turning no matter how badly she messed up.

Tonight, though, the sight did remind her of something else: The conversation she'd had with Ran at the flower-viewing party. In her preparations to confront Shiko, it had almost slipped her mind. “... hey, Yukari?”

“Hmm?”

“When I agreed to be your shikigami, and you said that I was... somebody that you would be comfortable spending centuries with. What did you mean?”

“It's just like I said. I've met plenty of shrine maidens, but you're the only one that I think I could get along with for that long.” Yukari glanced at Reimu. “Having second thoughts?”

“Nothing like that. I guess what I meant was... why do you feel like that?”

“Fishing for compliments, are we?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Hmm, well. Any new shikigami of mine would need to get along with Ran and Chen, and you seem to be doing that well. You're hard-working when it matters, but you know how to relax. You can _almost_ keep up with me while drinking. You think of others, but you're self-centered at heart. … really, you always were fairly youkai-like, even as a human...”

“That isn't as much of a compliment as you probably think it is.”

“Hmm, is it not? Ah well. In any case, it's not something that I can express as a list of qualities. You are Reimu, and that's enough. I like to think that we get along, don't we?”

“You aren't that bad when you're not going out of your way to be annoying,” Reimu admitted, and sat back up. She knew where she intended to take this conversation, but working up the resolve was the hard part. She sipped at her tea as the two looked out over the strange panoramic landscape of Gensokyo below. She had almost gotten to the point where she could look at it without getting disoriented as soon as she turned her head. By the time that she felt ready to speak, her drink was getting cold. She hurried to drink the last of it and set her cup aside. “So what does that make us?”

“... what do you mean?”

“I mean... I don't know what I mean, actually. You liked me enough to give me part of your soul to save my life. Let's start with that.”

For once, Reimu got to see Yukari taken by surprise. “Well, I can't deny that,” she said carefully.

“So... what _are_ we?”

“What do _you_ think we are?” Yukari asked, looking over with a coy expression that suggested that she knew exactly how annoying it was to redirect that particular question.

Reimu could see that she wasn't getting out of this without being more direct. Which had probably been Yukari's plan all along. _Why do I even_ put up _with her, let alone like her...?_ Drawing herself up to her full height, she tried to force herself to get to the point. “What I'm saying is. When we aren't doing... official shikigami things, we're pretty close, right?"

Yukari shot her a suspicious glance “Ran put you up to this, didn't she?”

Now it was Reimu's turn to be surprised. “Ah...? Well, um. She dropped some hints, but... look, this was my idea!”

“Mmh. I should have expected this. One thing that you should know if you're going to be around Ran for long: She is a very enthusiastic matchmaker.” Yukari let out a soft sigh of amusement. “So, let's say that we're 'pretty close.' What does that mean to you?"

"... I don't know," Reimu admitted. If she was honest with herself, she'd been hoping that Yukari might say something that would help her make sense of her own emotions. "I've had too much other stuff to think about. But... I guess what I'm saying is. Um. I think I might have a crush on you," she finally mumbled.

Yukari sat in mild shock for a moment before she recovered. “I'm flattered,” she said, with a sincere smile. "But you don't need to decide anything yet. This is one reason I wasn't going to say anything. You could spend two hundred years coming to terms with your emotions, and still have a dozen human lifetimes left over. And you know about the situation with me and Ran? And with Yuyuko?"

"I... think so. Ran explained it to me."

“And I assume that, since you're bringing this up, you're interested in taking things further.”

“Um.” Reimu rubbed at the back of her neck bashfully. “Yeah.”

“Hmm. I'd be lying if I didn't say that the feeling was mutual,” Yukari said. She watched Reimu for just long enough to savor her flustered expression afterward, then thoughtfully gazed out over the landscape in silence for a few moments. "... how about this, then? Every few months, I make a trip into the outside world. It's technically a business trip, but I don't have much to take care of this time. If you want to come along, we could make a day out of it." She looked over to Reimu with a playful smile. "If it ends in a passionate kiss, we'll call it a date. If it doesn't... you'll still get to learn a little more about the world."

A... date. _And_ the outside world. They were two very dangerous concepts, and combined, were almost daunting enough to make her back down. She found herself smiling, though, and brushed her hair back with an anxious laugh. "Sure, that... sounds nice."

"Wonderful. There are just a few things that you'll need to do first..."


	18. Chapter 18

Yukari's 'few things' for their date with her had turned into a not-insignificant list of requirements. Reimu needed a set of outside world clothing. She needed to brief herself on common outside world terms. She needed to learn about a few outside world hobbies well enough to make small talk about them. She needed, basically, to be able to pass herself off as an outside world native if she got cornered in conversation for a few minutes.

She'd never seen Sanae so excited in her life.

The end result was a lesson covering far more than she'd ever wanted to know about some topics, and far less than she felt like she needed to fit in. Sanae had given her a purse, which held nothing but an old cell phone (“everybody will think you're a weirdo if you don't have one of these,” she had said) and some odds and ends to pad it out. She'd spent two hours fishing clothes out of cardboard boxes before she'd found a set that fit Reimu _and_ passed her own criteria for date-worthiness.

Now, after an hour of preparation, Reimu was almost ready. She was wearing her hair down. Without its usual ornaments to keep it in line, it had taken her half an hour of wetting it, brushing it, and re-wetting it before it had settled into something that didn't _quite_ qualify as a frizzy mess. A dark red top, ruffled at the bottom and smelling lightly of mothballs. A white jacket, which Sanae had advised her to wear unbuttoned. Under Sanae's advice, she'd also opted for pants instead of a skirt, and had found a single pair of jeans that fit. And, finally, socks and a pair of sneakers.

None of the clothes felt quite right. Most of Sanae's newer outfits had been too big for her, so they'd had to dig back into some of her older things. Even then, there hadn't been many choices. Sanae had called the end result 'the casual look' with a nod of approval. Looking at herself in the mirror, Reimu wasn't sure if it worked or not. Either way, it was a bit too late to back out now. She'd just have to trust in Sanae's judgment and hope that Yukari wasn't too hard on her.

After resting the unfamiliar weight of the purse on her shoulder, Reimu stepped out into the main room. It was late morning, and Ran and Chen had already headed out for their daily activities. She mentally chastised herself for not thinking to ask Ran for advice before she'd left. Even if it was only a kinda-date, it still seemed like Ran should have _something_ helpful to say. Oh well. Reimu had been dealing with Yukari's surprises ever since she'd become the shrine maiden, and she'd be dealing with them for a long time to come. She was just going to have to get used to it.

She had been waiting for ten minutes by the time Yukari stepped out of her room. Yukari's outfit was simpler, a silky dark magenta dress that was cinched at her waist with a belt. Her hair was down, but she'd done _something_ to it to leave it shinier and filled with strategically-placed curls. She was wearing stockings and a pair of short black heels, and carrying a leather purse.

Reimu suddenly felt very... plain. She knew that it was going to be a long day as soon as she got flustered trying to come up with a suitable compliment. “Y-you look, um! You look nice...?”

“Thank you,” Yukari said, and inspected Reimu's outfit in turn. “Hmm, you do too. The 'scruffy twenty-something NEET' look suits you.”

Yukari's voice hinted that the comment was probably some kind of teasing joke, but Reimu couldn't make much sense out of it. “Thanks, I guess...?”

“You're welcome. Now then, are you ready to head out?"

"Sure," Reimu said, resisting the urge to fuss over her clothes one last time. "... how do we do this?"

"Gaps don't work well across the barrier," Yukari said. "We'll need to cross it directly. I'll show you the spot."

Without waiting, Yukari headed toward the door. Reimu hesitated. This was her last chance to admit that she wasn't ready, to stay here instead of diving into the unknown.

Instead, she stepped forward and followed Yukari to the edge of the yard.

* * *

Reimu stepped through the Hakurei Barrier, the boundary between fantasy and reality, the border containing everything that she'd ever known... and didn't feel much different, really. On the other side, it was the same sunny day that it had been in Gensokyo. The distant birdsongs sounded the same. Across a hundred meters of grassy hillside and trees, a house was standing. Apart from the electric lines and the road running past it, it wouldn't look out of place in Gensokyo.

Yukari was already walking across the field. “Please move quickly until we're across the road. It's best if nobody sees us coming from this direction.”

“Um, okay.” Reimu had already made up her mind to just not question any directions that Yukari gave her on the trip. At least, as far as interacting with the outside world went. With her hand on the strap of her purse to keep it from bouncing, she hurried after Yukari. “... aren't those shoes terrible for walking on the grass?”

“They are, yes. It's all for keeping up appearances. Everybody in the town thinks I'm an eccentric businesswoman with more money than sense. I prefer it that way.” Once they were to the road, Yukari paused and glanced both ways. Not knowing the purpose of this ritual, Reimu followed suit.

Only after they crossed did Reimu realize that Yukari was heading toward the house. “... are we going inside?”

“Just opening it up to let it air out a little. It should be safe until we get back,” Yukari said, as she pulled a set of keys out of a gap and pushed one into the lock. ”The family has been on overseas business for a few years. I look after the place, and they give me a stipend and let me use their car. A mutually-beneficial situation, don't you think?”

“I... guess.” Yukari pushed the door open, and Reimu was instantly struck by the smell of stale air. “How do you even _know_ people out here?”

“It's... complicated,” Yukari said, as she walked back across the lawn. Sitting in front of the house was a blue tarp, draped over something big and weighed down with rocks. She started moving the rocks aside, and Reimu stepped over to help. “The Hearn family is important to me. I try to stay in touch just to keep an eye on them. The housesitting money is just a bonus.”

“Oh.” Reimu slid the last rock from the tarp and took a step away. Yukari tugged it off to reveal the gleaming blue object beneath. _Car._ It was one of the handful of outside world objects that she could identify on sight, and Sanae had included them in her mini-lecture. She inspected the thing and ran through the list of terms that Sanae had drilled into her. _Those are tires. That's the driver's side. That's the windshield. That's the..._ Her thoughts trailed off as Yukari opened the driver side door, and she fumbled with the handle of the other one until she managed to pry it open and slide into the seat. Even more than the house, the car smelled musty and unused. “You said you had business to take care of, right?”

“I need to stop by the post office and pick up some packages. Ran wants me to exchange some library books. I've been commissioned to buy a few things, and we can get in some personal shopping while we're taking care of those. After that, the rest of the day is ours to use as we see fit.” Yukari pushed a key into the ignition and turned it; the engine hummed to life, and Reimu flinched in surprise at the sound. “Does that sound good?”

“Huh? Um, yeah, sure,” Reimu said. It wasn't like she knew what else to do out here. She uneasily kept an eye on the spot on the dashboard where the noise seemed to be coming from. “... since when are you a youkai shopping service?”

“Since long before you were born,” Yukari said. She pulled some kind of lever, grabbed the wheel— _steering_ wheel, Reimu dutifully reminded herself—and the car began rolling backward.

Reimu had been anticipating that, but still found herself holding on to whatever was handy. “You... do know how to control this thing, right?”

“Hmm? Well, as a youkai, you don't need to be very concerned, anyway. This kind of injury would only put you out of commission for few days, tops.”

“That's not funny,” Reimu said, and tightened her grip on the seat. Yukari backed out onto the road. As the car started moving forward, Reimu tried to relax. At least now she could see which direction they were going. “... you still didn't explain the shopping thing, though.”

“Are you sure you want the explanation? It's not very interesting.”

“I need something to keep my mind off of this.” Reimu looked out the window, and instantly regretted it. The roadside trees were barely five meters away, and moving very quickly. She'd thought that it would feel comparable to flying, but if she ever got this close to obstacles when she was flying this fast, it meant that she'd made a horrible mistake.

“Well, okay then. Where do you think the money in Gensokyo comes from?”

“I don't know. I find—er, used to find—some around the shrine sometimes.”

“That's part of it. Anybody who comes into Gensokyo from the outside usually has some, too. Even if they're eaten by youkai... most youkai aren't so wasteful as to pass up free money. And where...” Yukari paused, as the car rolled to a stop at an intersection. Reimu breathed a sigh of relief, only to end up cringing when another car sped past perpendicular to them, mere meters ahead. “... does all the money go?”

“Huh? People spend it on things.”

“Yes, but that only moves it from one person to another. People lose money occasionally, but not faster than it comes in. If we left it alone, the money would just keep piling up until it crushed us all. It would be _very_ tragic.”

Reimu rolled her eyes at the dramatic description, but thought she got the gist of it. She tried to focus on the dilemma to distract herself from the fact that the car was moving again. “So you have to spend money outside to get rid of it?”

“Essentially. Between money making its way across the barrier and the Scarlet Devil Mansion spending their reserves, we usually expect about eighty thousand yen to enter circulation in a month. It's not much, but it adds up over time. Ran has taught herself about this sort of thing, so she keeps track of Gensokyo's money supply. When it needs to be smaller, we accept money to buy things in the outside world.”

“Um. Huh.” Already, Reimu could feel the new math-inclined parts of her brain chewing on the concepts subconsciously. It was weird, the things that she found interesting now that math came naturally to her. "... she just _taught_ herself that kind of thing?"

"It's what she enjoys doing. She's taught herself a few academic disciplines like that. She's also an accomplished novelist, an excellent koto player, and used to make pottery before the barrier went up. Like I said before, you'd be surprised what somebody can get up to in a few millennia."

"Huh..." The car hit a pothole. Reimu cringed, but death did not come. This time, at least. She needed more distractions. "W-what about you?"

"Me? Well, my last philosophical treatise was well-received by the other youkai sages. Yuyuko insists that I'm a good painter, but I have a long way to go. Hmm. I'm the shogi champion of Gensokyo, but I haven't had a chance to play Lady Yagokoro or Miko yet, so that could still change. And I can cook, of course."

Reimu smirked to herself. "Apart from the cooking, those sound like some old man's hobbies."

"Guilty as charged,” Yukari said. “You should think about some new hobbies, yourself. You're going to get bored of sitting around drinking tea and playing with Chen sooner or later."

"I'm not really good at much..."

"You have centuries to practice. Some humans would kill to have the same opportunity. ... besides." Yukari looked away from the road for just a moment to shoot Reimu a playful glance. Reimu kept her eyes glued to the windshield, terrified that the car was going to veer out of control. "You're going to have to learn poetry or writing if you want to send me heartfelt love letters."

"I wouldn't hold your breath," Reimu said. "Keep your eyes on the road."

Around them, the trees and foothills were slowly thinning out, giving way to civilization. The buildings were more varied now. The scenery was a strange jumble, alien and unfamiliar things sitting right next to everyday items. A small building announced itself as Toriyama Bicycle Repair with a hand painted sign that wouldn't look out of place in the village. Pedestrians walked down the street in a mix of familiar and strange clothes. A brick building loomed on one corner, larger than anything in Gensokyo short of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. And everywhere, lights, signs, and wires.

"What do you think?" Yukari asked, once the buildings around them had grown thicker and more regular.

"It's... weird. It's not like I expected, I guess." Reimu wasn't sure what she _had_ expected. All of Sanae's stories about the outside world were about machines to let humans fly, glowing boxes that let you watch plays from far away, buildings that were so tall that they touched the clouds, and sending encyclopedias to people over wires. Her surroundings were strange, but compared to things like that... they were a mundane kind of strangeness, at least. She wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

"This is a small town, all things considered," Yukari said, as if reading her thoughts. "It only has about five times as many people as the human village. We're a short drive from Tokyo or Nagoya, though. If you really want to see some new things..."

"This is plenty," Reimu said. She still hadn't let up her death grip on her seat. The surroundings outside still felt unreal. It was the same sensation she'd had when looking out her window, that first day in Yukari's house. Like the thin layer of glass was the only thing keeping her safe. If it cracked, she'd be sucked out into the strange surroundings, never to be seen again.

"This is our first stop." Yukari's voice snapped Reimu's attention back to the present, and she realized that they were pulling in alongside a building. Once the car was stopped, Yukari pulled the keys out and flipped them into her palm. "... is there anything you need to review before we get out?"

 _Get out_. Reimu was going to have to walk in this weird place, and suddenly felt horribly unprepared. "What if somebody talks to me."

"I've seen you talk before, Reimu. Several times, actually. You'll be fine." Yukari reached over to give her hand a reassuring pat, then opened the door. "Now, come on. Every minute that we waste now is one less minute for our date~."

That wasn't quite the motivation that Reimu needed. The date was intimidating enough in its own right. But, she pulled on the handle and pushed her door open. After taking a moment to steady her nerves, Reimu slipped out, and took her first steps on concrete.


	19. Chapter 19

From the post office, Yukari retrieved seven packages of various shapes and sizes, along with a twine-bundled stack of mail. When they got back to the car, she surreptitiously opened a gap in the trunk and slipped them inside for temporary storage.

The next stop was the library. Yukari returned a stack of books, and Reimu was left to explore while she hunted down a list of Ran's requests. It was more books than Reimu had ever seen outside the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and unlike the library there or in Suzunaan, she could actually understand some of the subject matter. Not that it helped her much when she was trying to choose among tens of thousands of unfamiliar books. It felt wasteful to take any of them when she could barely understand what half of them were about, but after some cajoling from Yukari, she chose a few novels nearly at random.

A newspaper stand, where Yukari bought a single copy of everything on offer. A department store, filled with a dizzying selection of items that Reimu had never seen before, where Yukari hunted down a few items from her list of requests. By the time they'd gone through the entire to-do list, it had been nearly four hours since they'd left the barrier. The surroundings weren't any more familiar, but after a day of walking through them, they'd lost some of the threatening edge. They just felt unreal now. There was no way to make the hundreds of buildings and people and cars fit together in a way that made sense.

So, as they settled into the car after one last stop, she had almost forgotten about the other purpose of the trip. She was unprepared when Yukari turned to her. "That's the last of the business. Now then," Yukari said, and slid the keys back into the ignition. "Where shall we go on our date?"

* * *

'Somewhere with food' had been Reimu's only answer. On a normal day, she would be long asleep by now. She'd adjusted to the irregular sleep patterns, more or less, but her stomach was still crying out for a meal.

At least it was only mundane hunger this time.

Now, she found herself sitting at a table by a massive window that overlooked small garden, while Yukari patiently fielded their waitress' ever-escalating torrent of chipper questions. "Yes. Yes. This will be fine. Thank you. Two milk teas. Yes. And the Heartful Parfait, please. Yes. Just one. Yes, I understand. Thank you."

The waitress bowed and hurried off, blushing. Reimu's attention snapped back to her immediate surroundings. "... what was her problem?"

"You'll find out soon enough," Yukari said in a teasing, singsong voice.

"Saying it like that doesn't really help me relax, you know."

"Ahh, but you're cute when you get flustered, so either way is fine with me."

Reimu's immediate reflex was to get annoyed at the comment—Yukari had made a game out of embarrassing her as long as they'd known each other—but restrained herself. It was a date. She couldn't exactly hold a grudge against Yukari for complimenting her. “... thanks. I guess.”

“You're welcome,” Yukari said. She seemed pleased at having her compliment go over well for once, but her smile soon took on the more mischievous bent that Reimu knew meant trouble. “So, since I chose the spot, it's only fair for you to come up with the conversation topic.”

“Well—“ Reimu froze, as she realized that she had no idea what to talk about. She couldn't talk about anything related to Gensokyo, in case somebody overheard. What did people even talk about on dates? Well, Yukari had called her cute. “Your... outfit looks really nice.”

“Thank you. Yours isn't bad, either. It goes well with your eyes,” Yukari retorted, without missing a beat.

With her chin resting in her hands, even. She made it look like the most effortless thing in the world. Some competitive streak inside Reimu took it as a deliberate challenge. She couldn't stop now. She had to show that she could be just as cavalier about the whole thing. “... and your hair is really pretty today.”

“Yours is too. You should let me curl it sometime.”

“Y-you... You're a lot nicer than you let on!”

“And you're kinder. I really appreciate how you're getting along with Chen.”

“ _... your face is really pre—_ ”

“U-um.” The waitress' voice interrupted Reimu, and she stopped mid-sentence. She hadn't realized that she'd risen out of her seat and started leaning over the table. She wondered just how much the girl had heard. Plenty, apparently, since she murmured a quiet, “Excuse the interruption...” before sitting a cup of tea in front of each of them.

Reimu was too mortified afterward to respond. She was frozen in place, staring dead-eyed at the tabletop as the waitress sat a jar of sugar and a small pitcher of milk between them. Yukari watched her the whole time, wearing an infuriatingly calm, unreadable expression. After the waitress bowed again and traveled back out of earshot, Reimu allowed herself to slump down.

“You were saying something about my face?” Yukari said, as she stirred some milk into her tea.

“I forget what it was,” Reimu said with a defeated sigh. She took the pot of milk once Yukari was finished with it and poured a dash into her own cup.

“For what it's worth, I meant everything that I said.”

“... thanks,” Reimu said. She fussed over her tea until some of the embarrassment had drained out of her. It didn't take long, thanks to a new distraction: In the waitress' departure, she had left the now-familiar odor of human.

Reimu sipped her tea to get the scent out of her nose. It wasn't that they smelled _bad_. She just... wasn't comfortable with it. It was a constant, inescapable reminder that she was surrounded by people who were fundamentally no different from her dinner a few days ago. It was the last thing she wanted to think about right now.

"Well," Yukari said, snapping Reimu out of her thoughts. "You look gloomy. Am I that bad at this dating thing?"

"H-huh? Oh, um, sorry." Reimu sat her cup down and added some more milk, trying to pass it off as a temporary distraction. "... I'm not sure what to talk about, though."

"Hmm, well, have you given any more thought to taking the Yakumo name? I think we can safely say that you're part of the family now."

"I—" Reimu began, then froze. "A... family, huh?"

"A family," Yukari repeated. “I know it hasn't been long, but it's the word that fits best, isn't it?”

It had never been a word that Reimu had much use for. Now, considering it, she felt strangely vulnerable. “... maybe,” she said, and took a sip of tea to give herself an excuse to stop talking while she got her thoughts back on track. “I haven't really thought about it, but having one name does make me sound like a f—“ _fairy_ , another word she shouldn't say out here. “I mean. I do need another name...”

Yukari nodded, but before she could respond, the waitress approached the table again. This time, she was carrying a tray, on which was sitting a single giant dessert dish. It was nearly a third of a meter tall, and it was heaped with practically every sweet thing that Reimu could think of. Layers of ice cream and berries, a thick stripe of fudge near the center, a generous heap of whipped cream on top, drizzled with chocolate syrup and garnished with several more pieces of fruit, some of which she couldn't even identify.

As the waitress sat the thing on the table, Reimu's thoughts whirled through her head. There was no way that all of those berries were in-season. She'd never encountered so much chocolate in one place before. _It was the most beautiful thing that she'd ever seen._

And. There was only one spoon.

Reimu watched, dazed, as Yukari scooped the cherry off of the top and popped it into her mouth. “Can you really eat that entire thing?”

“Hmm? No, of course not.” With another swipe of the spoon, Yukari got a raspberry, along with a tempting dash of chocolate syrup and the whipped cream it was embedded in. Extending the spoon toward Reimu's mouth, she added, “Say 'aaaaahn'~”

"W-what are you—?" Reimu was interrupted, as Yukari took the opportunity to push the spoon into her mouth. After a muffled protest, she pulled away and chewed. Even though it had only been weeks since the end of winter, the berry was somehow plump, ripe and sweet. By the time she swallowed it, Yukari was humming to herself, sounding entirely too pleased as she considered which bit of the parfait to grab next. Reimu licked some remaining chocolate syrup from her lips and tried to will her own blush away. "Are you going to explain yourself?"

"What's there to explain?" Yukari plucked a graham cracker from the top of the parfait and took a bite. Reimu's stomach threatened to growl as she watched it disappear between her lips. "It's a parfait specifically for sharing."

"They _have_ things like that?"

"If you know where to look. This cafe specializes in dates."

"It..." The implications of that statement slowly bubbled up through Reimu's brain. "So everybody here knows that we're on a date?"

"Probably. I'm sure that they're all very jealous of me."

Reimu leaned closer now, her voice barely above a whisper. "Isn't this kind of thing pretty weird out here?"

"Two girls? It happens more than it used to be, but it's far less common than it is back home."

At least now Reimu knew why the waitress had seemed so embarrassed. She sank down in her seat, finding herself acutely aware of the handful of other couples in the room. Every single other table had one man, one woman. How had it taken her so long to notice?

"Think of it this way,” Yukari said. “You're never going to see any of these people again. You don't need to worry about their opinions. Why not relax and do whatever feels best?" She scooped a bite of ice cream, then paused, waggling the spoon in the air in an exaggerated, thoughtful fashion. "Hmm, you know, it could be fun to see how far we can push it... how do you feel about open-mouth kissing?"

"We're not doing that," Reimu said. Reaching across the table, she grabbed the spoon. With Yukari's hand still on it, she guided it to her mouth to steal the bite of ice cream. "You've had enough. It's my turn now."

"Hmm? Of course."

Yukari relinquished her grip on the spoon. Reimu scooted the dish closer and began eating. She made a show of it, taking care to pick the juiciest-looking berries and the thickest globs of fudge, retaliating for every bite that Yukari had taken so far. Yukari watched her across the table, with an indulgent smile on her face. “Can you really eat that entire thing?” she asked.

"I could if I wanted to," Reimu said, and took a few more bites just for good measure. Once she felt like she'd gotten her rightful revenge, she scooped up a bigger spoonful, taking care to get a nice mix of ice cream, fudge, and a blueberry. As casually as she could, she offered it across the table.

"Oh, had your fill?" Yukari leaned forward, and her lips closed around the spoon. Reimu allowed herself to ignore their surroundings and relax. The food was good. As little as she wanted to admit it, she liked the idea of splitting the sundae with Yukari. And after her experience in the human village, a few sidelong glances at a cafe were nothing.

By the time that Yukari had swallowed the bite of ice cream, Reimu found herself smiling. "We, um, we could," she said, doing her best to mirror Yukari's usual confident, playful tone. "We could try a normal kiss, though. If you want."

"Oh? Are you sure?"

"I'm not going to ask twice."

"My, you're just full of surprises." Yukari leaned forward, with one elbow resting on the table in an aggressive posture. "Give me your best shot, then."

Well. It was too late to back out now. "R-right," Reimu said. She took a steady breath, then leaned forward to meet Yukari halfway.

Ignoring the onlookers, Reimu allowed herself to do one more selfish thing. She enjoyed the hell out of it.

* * *

By the time that the two climbed back in the car and set off for the edge of the barrier, Reimu was exhausted. It was the late afternoon; normally, she'd be waking up around this time. The day had been full of overwhelming experiences, anyway. Even though she'd barely done anything in the outside world except trail Yukari around and watch her do chores, all of the new sights and sounds were more than she could handle. The rush of emotions in the cafe was just an extra burden on top of it.

But as she slumped into the seat, she was happy. Tired, but happy.

Yukari started the car and pulled onto the road. This time, Reimu didn't get anxious at every oncoming obstacle. She leaned against the door, looking out the window as a parade of foreign objects drifted past.

“You aren't going to fall asleep, are you?” Yukari said. “Carrying you all the way to the border might be hard. You gained a few kilos from the parfait, I'm sure...”

“I'll be fine...” Reimu pushed herself away from the window and sat upright. Watching the oncoming scenery, her evasion instincts kept screaming that she was seconds from an impact. It did help her wake up, even as it left her squirming in her seat. “... hey, Yukari?”

“Hmm?”

“Thanks for today. I... had fun.”

“I'm glad. How do you like the outside world?”

“Mmh... I don't know. It's weird thinking that there's nothing but humans out here. And it's noisy. The food's nice, I guess.”

“A fair assessment. The luxuries can be nice sometimes, but it's a spiritually dead place. Those gods and youkai that haven't already disappeared or come to Gensokyo are shadows of their former selves. The outside world is... no place for us.”

“Right...” Reimu had heard it dozens of times, from Kanako and Mamizou. Now, seeing it, it felt far more real. “How... long has it been like this?”

“It was a gradual thing. Bit by bit, humanity found ways to explain away the world's mysteries. It left no room for us. Youkai have always come and gone as beliefs change. When we realized that it was getting worse, we created the border, but it took time.” Yukari went silent as the car came to a stop at an intersection. The interior was filled with the soft tick of the turn signal, and she gazed out the windshield thoughtfully. After the turn, she continued. “Most youkai that you know lost close friends during that time. The whole world used to be like Gensokyo. Now, it's only us. Entire races of youkai are gone forever.”

“... I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. Gensokyo is small, but it's home. We'll do whatever we need to to keep it running. Besides... you're one of us now.”

As the shrine maiden, Reimu had gotten used to thinking of herself as the only thing standing between the human village and the far larger amount of youkai outside of it. It was strange, thinking that that the youkai were the real prisoners. If Gensokyo collapsed, the humans would be survive, after some adjustment. The youkai... she couldn't see much room for them in the jumble of concrete and metal out her window.

She supposed that meant that there wasn't any room for _her_ out here, either. She wondered if there ever had been.

The rest of the ride passed in silence. Yukari parked the car in front of the house, and they pulled the tarp over it again. She closed and locked the door. And then, looking back toward the barrier, she offered a hand over. “Ready to go home?”

Reimu hesitated, but only briefly. With a smile, she slid her hand into Yukari's. “Yeah, sure.”

This time, they were less hurried as they crossed the empty field. The sun was setting, but in every direction, the glow of electric lights lit up the horizon. She wondered if the stars were even visible from within the city. She would miss them, if they weren't.

Letting her sense of boundaries fade back in, Reimu was able to see the Hakurei Barrier in front of her, a shimmering curtain of pure separation. Yukari released her hand as they approached and dipped a finger into the surface. “Please be prepared. On the off-chance that somebody is following us, we'll be coming out into Gensokyo itself. The Hakurei shrine maiden might come to investigate the disruption.”

“Oh. Great.” Reimu watched as Yukari teased her finger up and down the surface of the barrier, coaxing it into weakening for a moment. “If she wants a fight, maybe I should just give it to her. _Somebody's_ going to beat her up, it might as well be...“

Reimu trailed off, and Yukari glanced over to her. “Is something wrong?”

“I, um." Reimu laughed incredulously under her breath. "I think I just figured out what I need to do."


	20. Chapter 20

Reimu's plan was simple, but it still required days of work. Practice poking holes in the barrier, and speaking with Sanae and Marisa to make sure that they wouldn't interfere. Convincing herself that, yes, she could do this. Convincing Yukari that she had recovered from her collapse and could handle herself in a serious fight. And, picking the right spot.

The location that she had chosen was along the edge of the Forest of Magic, right where it melted into the plains and foothills that made up the center of Gensokyo. The trees here grew thick and tall, free of the poisonous mushrooms that stunted the ones deeper in the forest. Even during the day, it was a dark and gloomy place.

Now, deep at night, the only light came from the stars overhead and glowing lichen on the fallen logs. Reimu sat on the thick branch of a tree. In front of her, the Hakurei barrier was shimmering in her barrier senses. Its surface was warped and twisted, like it was writhing in pain. A defect. She'd introduced it herself. Too big to quickly heal, deep enough that somebody could slip through the barrier at that spot if they knew to head for it. It was an injury in Gensokyo's side. Creating it had gone against every instinct that she had cultivated as a shrine maiden.

Which made it the perfect bait to trap one.

She wasn't waiting long. It had barely been two hours when a red-white streak dropped from the skies in front of her. 

Reimu waited, and watched as Shiko peered around. Her hair was a mess, and she was squinting sleepily. She'd probably gotten out of bed for this. “Is somebody here?”

Reimu stayed silent. It was funny. She'd had lived without night vision for her entire life, but now that she had it, she almost couldn't remember what it was like. Was Shiko seeing nothing but darkness? Could she even she the outlines of objects? If the shrine maiden couldn't see, this wasn't going to take long.

“You should get used to late nights,” Reimu said, and rose to standing on the branch. “Youkai don't really plan around your schedule.”

“Reimu?” Shiko tightened her grip on her gohei. She took a step back from the trees, with her eyes blindly scanning the area. “Where are you? Did you do this?!”

“Yeah, I did,” Reimu said. She dropped from the branch and landed in a crouch. Dried leaves and twigs crackled under her feet. 

Shiko flinched at the noise and stumbled further. One hand whipped up, brandishing a fistful of ofuda at the darkness. “Why?!”

“We still have business to settle.” Reimu took another step forward. “The first time we talked, you asked if I was a human or a youkai. I can't pretend anymore. I'm a youkai.”

“A-are you here to attack me?”

“You said that you'd treat me like any other youkai the next time you saw me, right?”

“... Um. I did,” Shiko said, suddenly sounding less certain about the idea than she had when she'd made the proclamation.

“Well, here I am. If you're going to exterminate me, then do it.”

It was so simple, Reimu was angry at herself for not realizing it earlier. She'd been so hung up on finding a way to convince Shiko that she was a friend, but that hadn't gotten her anywhere. Instead, she needed to do what any other youkai would when faced with an uncooperative shrine maiden: She needed to fight, and she needed to win. Put enough of a scare into her, and maybe she'd start listening to reason.

In the darkness, Reimu could see Shiko raise the handful of ofuda. As the shrine maiden hurled them forward, Reimu fell backward into a waiting gap. She reappeared silently, barely a meter from Shiko's side, just in time to see the ofuda shred through the underbrush. “I'm ready for a fight,” Reimu continued. Shiko whipped the gohei toward her head, and Reimu easily ducked under the blind swing. By the time she attempted another one, Reimu had already reappeared on her other side. “You're a threat to Gensokyo's balance. The way things are going, you're going to get yourself killed, and hurt a bunch of youkai who don't deserve it in the process.”

“I-I don't care! Shut up!” Shiko tossed out another handful of ofuda in the direction of Reimu's voice, and once again, Reimu easily dodged through a gap.

This time, she reappeared directly behind the girl. “If you're going to fight without spell cards, I can't guarantee I won't hurt you.” Reimu pulled her hand back, preparing to bowl her over with a single forceful blast of energy. 

And, with a gesture, Shiko beckoned one of the yin-yang orbs upward. It launched into the air, shedding sparks of light behind itself like a firework. Just below the canopy, it came to an abrupt stop and erupted with energy. Harsh, white light flooded the forest.

Reimu was overwhelmed by the glare for just a moment. It was all the opening that Shiko needed. The shrine maiden whirled away from her, and by the time that Reimu's sight cleared, the girl was a chaotic dance of spiritual weaponry. Ofuda orbited her in bands, while the remaining orbs circled her ankles quickly enough to flatten the surrounding grass. “Then I just have to win!”

Shiko swept her arms forward, and an avalanche of ofuda came rushing toward Reimu. Her combat programming screamed for reprieve. It was a solid wall of projectiles. There probably wasn't a path through it large enough for a bird, let alone a person. It would never be allowed in a spell card duel.

Which meant that Reimu didn't need to play fair, either. With a wave of her hand, she warped the boundaries in front of her, twisting the dimensions in around themselves. A shimmering disc of distortion appeared, and as the ofuda collided against it, they silently rebounded. In the blink of an eye, Shiko found herself staring down her own barrage. With a yelp of surprise, she scrambled away. The air was filled with the sounds of paper and foliage tearing at each other. A layer of shredded and crumpled ofuda drifted to the ground.

“You're pretty strong, for a newbie,” Reimu said, stepping forward behind the storm of ofuda. Behind her, the air split open into an array of long, thin gaps. The wan violet light from within them softened the harsh glare of the orb. “But you have a long way to go before you're the best in Gensokyo. Give up yet?”

Shiko had managed to avoid the worst of her own attack. The few ofuda that had impacted her clung to her skin harmlessly, and she was trying to rip them off while keeping an eye on Reimu. “N-no!”

One of the yin-yang orbs lashed out at Reimu. She easily sidestepped it, and it smashed into the ground. In retaliation, she gestured forward. The eyes within her gaps turned in unison to focus on Shiko, and with a single shudder of energy, a dozen beams of energy blasted out. The forest was filled with strobing violet light, slicing the nighttime into alternating near-darkness and overwhelming illumination. Shiko ducked and weaved between trees like a wild animal. Behind her, the lasers left scorch marks on the sides of trees and guttering flames in the underbrush. Reimu walked implacably after her, taking care to adjust her aim to never quite hit the shrine maiden. The purpose was to terrify her, after all, not to kill her.

Shiko dove forward to avoid one beam. As she did so, she lashed her hand out, tossing a fistful of ofuda. It was only thirteen projectiles. Without any conscious input, Reimu's shikigami programming guided her body through quick, effortless evasion. The ofuda swished past so close that she could feel the breeze on her cheek.

Unfortunately, they were also a distraction. Too late, Reimu noticed that the shadows were rapidly shifting around her. She turned around just in time to see the glowing yin-yang orb barreling at her.

She tried to dodge, but the orb was already on top of her. It slammed into her back with the force of a charging bull. Pain exploded through her ribcage. The impact threw her forward, and she tumbled across the ground. By the time she came to a stop, Shiko was already approaching. The yin-yang orbs orbited her again now, all of them glowing and filling the forest with whirling shadows. She had another handful of ofuda prepared, gripped so tightly that the paper was crumpled near her fingers.

And, tears were glistening in her eyes. Her hands were trembling. She looked terrified, really. Reimu took stock of her situation as she propped herself up against the ground. Her side was throbbing with pain, but she could work past it. She probably had a cracked rib or something. It was the kind of injury that would have been fight-ending if she were still a human, but it would barely slow her down now. Her much bigger problem was the fact that she was sprawled on the ground, and Shiko was standing over her. As anxious as the girl looked, she might attack as soon as Reimu made a single sudden movement. Reimu's mind filled with the memories of a dozen exterminations, the sizzling noise of purifying energy burning through some shrieking youkai's flesh...

In front of her, Shiko raised the gohei. She looked conflicted.

Reimu wasn't about to give her time to make up her mind. Instead, she dug through the boundaries around her until she found something suitable: the boundary between ground and air. It was a hazy, ill-defined one. Normally, such a weak boundary would be no use to her. Here, at this close range, it would work. She poured her energy into the boundary, strengthening it, then overloading it. In a rough circle around Reimu, stretching for meters, the ground began glowing.

“W-what are...?!” Shiko stumbled back, whipping the ofuda up for an attack... and the ground beneath her erupted with violet energy. She was blasted into the air, whirling head over heels. Thunderous cracks echoed through the forest as nearby tree trunks warped and split under the force of the attack. Wincing in pain, Reimu pushed herself to standing. Her side ached in protest.

Shiko came plummeting back down. It was obvious that she was slowing her descent, but unable to get her bearings well enough to stop. She slammed into the ground with enough force to knock the wind out of her. Reimu wasn't about to give her a chance to recover. “Do you get it yet?”

Shiko started struggling back to her feet, and Reimu poured more energy into the ground. It flared again, and this time, the shrine maiden was launched horizontally across the forest floor. She tumbled for a dozen meters, and came to a stop just sort of slamming into a tree trunk. Reimu flinched. No broken bones, hopefully, but the fight seemed to have finally been knocked out of her. Shiko was left laying at the base of the tree, taking short, frantic breaths. Her hands weakly patted around for ofuda, but she'd lost most of them during the fight. The purification rod was laying somewhere on the forest floor, meters away. Even the yin-yang orbs were gone, leaving a scattered trail of lights illuminating the forest.

She was defeated. Now, to drive it home. “You've made a lot of trouble for everybody,” Reimu said, as she approached. One of the yin-yang orbs was near her feet, and she kicked it away just to be safe. Shiko scooted away, and tried to push herself to standing against the tree.

With that, Reimu sprang forward. Shiko jerked away, but not quickly enough. As she pinned her wrists to the ground, Shiko thrashed beneath her. “G-get off of me!”

“Somebody's going to kill you sooner or later,” Reimu said, and leaned forward.

As she got closer, the familiar scent of human enveloped her. One of Shiko's lips had gotten busted during the fight, and the sharper smell of blood made her stomach growl. “Stop it!” Shiko smashed her forehead to Reimu's, trying to drive her away.

Reimu flinched, but pushed past it. “It might as well be me.” She shoved the girl back to the ground, then thrust downward, pressing her mouth to Shiko's neck in a position that came quite instinctively. Under her teeth, she could feel the girl's pulse. She bit down, sinking her newly-sharp canines into Shiko's flesh. A drop of blood, warm and thick, ran onto her tongue and filled her mouth with its flavor. With one little push, she could rip out the girl's throat...

Shiko had gone still at the first feeling of a point against her neck, but now spasmed beneath her. Reimu didn't realize what she was feeling until she heard the sounds, too: The girl was sobbing.

After one final warning squeeze to her neck, Reimu pulled back and licked the blood from her lips. Shiko was a mess. Blood running down her lip, a small stream of it trickling from the shallow cut on her neck, tears streaming down her face... Reimu sighed. “Do you understand, now? If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead.” She opened a gap and fished out a handkerchief, then offered it over. “Here.”

Shiko glared at the hand. “T-that whole thing was...?!”

“To teach you a lesson, yeah.”

“What the hell is wrong with you? I thought you were going to kill me!” Shiko said, too battered to put any force into it. 

“I guess that's what happens when you pick a fight with a youkai.”

Shiko scowled at her, but didn't seem to have a rebuttal. She snatched the handkerchief away, and Reimu let her take it. Keeping one eye on the girl, Reimu cautiously released the wrist that she still had pinned and rolled off of her. She took a seat alongside her at the base of the tree and tried to get comfortable. She hadn't come out of the fight in great condition, either. Her skin was covered with scratches and scrapes from her fall, and her ribs would be aching for hours. Her side hurt if she breathed too deep. But, it was over, and she'd done what she needed to.

Next to her, Shiko kept sniffling, but dabbed the handkerchief at her face, cleaning up the worst of the blood. Once she seemed a bit calmer, Reimu continued. “I'm... a youkai now. I can't lie about that anymore. But that doesn't mean that I want to hurt people any more than I have to. I think most youk—er, most of us are like that.” Reimu sighed and looked up to the sky. The stars still said the same things they had days before, when she'd predicted their alignment: It was a propitious night for learning. “The shrine maiden's supposed to keep humans safe, but it's more complicated than that. Gensokyo was made for youkai. This is our home. Pointlessly exterminating youkai who aren't hurting anybody... it just makes things worse.”

Shiko responded with a small grunt and dropped the handkerchief into her lap. The tiny red gouges on her neck stood out in sharp contrast with her pale skin. "'So leave us alone or we'll kill you,' is that it?"

Reimu sighed. "Look, did you enjoy that whole thing we just did? Fights are dangerous. I... pretty much died on a routine youkai extermination. Every time you have an actual fight, there's a chance that somebody will die. That's what spell cards are for.”

“Nngh.” Shiko winched in pain as she pushed herself up to sit more normally against the tree. "You're still telling me to leave youkai alone even when they're attacking people."

"If they really hurt somebody, then exterminate them," Reimu said. "But most of them know better than that. Youkai need to cause trouble for humans to survive, but that doesn't mean we have to be enemies. Um. I... think Gensokyo is best when humans and youkai get along. We're all stuck in here together. If we can't get along, we'll just keep killing each other forever. Seems kind of pointless to me.” Reimu pushed herself to standing, and offered Shiko a hand up. “If you can trust a youkai... I've got some people you should meet. I'll even help you make a spell card, if you want.”

“Why _should_ I trust you?”

“If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead already. Are you coming, or not?”

Shiko glared tiredly at the hand. For a moment, Reimu was terrified that she was going to say no. But, she reached up, and her still-shaky grasp closed with Reimu's. “Don't make me regret this.”


	21. Epilogue

A drinking party at the Hakurei shrine was Gensokyo's natural immune response to conflict. Or so it had seemed to Reimu at times, at least. More than one bitter rivalry had been settled there, sipping sake under the moonlight after an incident. So, she'd planned this out too. When she mentally informed Yukari that the fight was over and the pair would be going back to the shrine, she, Ran, and Chen were prepared.

Shiko had already been drowsy when they got back. After her first taste of alcohol, she had spent two hours of conversation growing progressively groggier. Now, sprawled on the shrine's floor, she seemed to be out of it for good. Reimu crept over to the shelf where all of the blankets were folded. Grabbing one—she recognized it as one that she'd bought, herself—she carried it across the room and draped it on the sleeping girl.

Outside, sitting just beyond the door, Ran had drifted off with Chen in her lap, sitting back-to-back with Yukari. Yukari was the only other one still awake, looking out toward the rest of Gensokyo. Reimu settled onto the step next to her. Through the trees, the lights of the human village were just barely visible below.

Yukari only spoke up after they'd been sitting in companionable silence for several minutes. “So,” she said, her voice low so as to not wake the others. “Do you think it worked?”

“I think so. She's stubborn, but she's coming around. Kind of. … if nothing else, she should be too sore to do anything too stupid for a few days.”

“Stubborn, hmm? Just like her predecessor, then.”

“I'm sure,” Reimu said, as if she had no idea who Yukari was talking about. “I think that now that she's spent time around youkai... it'll be easier. That's kind of what keeps Gensokyo together, right? After you know somebody, it's hard to think of them as a scary monster or, um, dinner.”

“You just might be right,” Yukari said, and the conversation ended. In the forest below, Reimu could hear the distant sounds of fairies playing, mixed with the soft, steady chirps of crickets. She'd gotten used to staying up all night, but between the soothing sounds and her own exhaustion, she was fading quickly. Yukari seemed to sense it, and pushed aside a few of the fluffy tails that were threatening to envelope her body. “There's room, if you'd like to get comfy.”

“... I don't think I should use Ran as a pillow without asking.”

“I'm sure that she would be fine with it. She's fond of you, you know.”

“Okay...” Reimu slid off of the step and moved around, then settled down next to Yukari. Yukari wrapped an arm around her, and with her other, gently pulled the tails inward. Warm, soothing fluff settled over Reimu like a blanket. “... they're a lot softer than they look.”

“She uses a special shampoo. You should think about getting a few tails, yourself. I'm afraid that until then, you hold the dubious honor of being the least-pettable shikigami in the household.”

“I think I'll live,” Reimu said. She scooted closer and rested her head on Yukari's shoulder. “She did a pretty good trick with the orbs. She might have won, if I'd been much slower.”

“Oh, is that why my back feels like somebody dropped a brick on it?”

Reimu winced. She hadn't accounted for the damage link. “... sorry.”

“I'm just glad that everything is resolved.”

“She... still has some training to do, but. Yeah. I think she's figuring it out.”

“Good. Tomorrow, she might need to punish you for leaving that hole in the barrier just sitting here. We'll need to close that first thing in the morning.”

“Nngh. It's been a long night. Let me rest.”

“Ah, lazy, too.”

“No tails and lazy. That's me,” Reimu said with a yawn. “I guess I'm just a cut-rate shikigami.”

“It's the price that I pay for being such a lazy, greedy master. I suppose we're stuck with each other.”

“Guess so.” Reimu let her eyes drift shut. Now that they'd stopped talking, she could just barely hear Yukari's heartbeat. It was... nice. “... hey, Yukari?”

“Mmh?”

“I've been thinking about the name thing.”

“Oh?”

“I...” Reimu squirmed. She'd made up her mind days ago, but the thought of saying it out loud was still embarrassing. “I think I'm going to... make the change.”

“Ah.” A few moments passed in silence. “Re-i-mu Ya-ku-mo,” Yukari said softly, lilting every syllable. “I like it.”

“It doesn't matter if you like it or not. I just need a last name.”

“It still sounds pretty.”

“That's not really what I'm worried about here.”

“Mmhm.” With her free hand, Yukari reached over and took one of Reimu's, interlacing their fingers. She gave it a soft squeeze. “Now, get some rest. You've had a long night.”

“I'm trying to, if you'd shut up,” Reimu said, with an exasperated sigh. Even so, she found herself smiling. “... good night, Yukari.”

“Good night. I'll try to keep the shrine maiden from exterminating you in your sleep, but no promises.”

“Great,” Reimu mumbled with another yawn, and finally allowed her thoughts to settle down. She still needed to figure out how to tell her friends that she had eaten human. She needed to start worrying about her next meal of it soon, even. She was sure that she and Shiko would have more conflicts in the future. But right now, buried in fluffy fox tails and resting against Yukari on a warm spring night, everything was okay for the moment. Reimu Yakumo relaxed, and allowed herself to drift off to a well-deserved sleep.


End file.
